Sing to Life
by JadeRabbyt
Summary: Vlad brings an interdimensional creature into Wisconsin, accidentally triggering a chain of events that could lead to the destruction of the physical universe. Danny struggles for hope against a fate that may have been inevitable all along. COMPLETE
1. Love and Baseball

Sing to Life

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is the property of Nickelodeon, a mighty tyrant of animation.

Chapter 1: Love and Baseball

Danny sat in school on a glorious, sunny Friday, chin in his hand and eyes on the clock. Mr. Nevers was up at the board, scribbling out some bland amalgam of random, confusing, and highly uninteresting facts, while twenty-five of the thirty students were either trying to resist sleep or jiggling around in their chairs, living in dreams of the weekend. In spite of the chattering, fidgeting, and occasional snoring, their stubborn teacher continued to instruct the tiny segment of kids who were paying attention.

"And here in the nineteen hundreds Dalton's hypotheses introduced chemistry as a firm, legitimate science."

A kid in the first row raised a tentative hand. "Uh, Mr. Nevers?"

The twin bushes over Nevers' eyes met as he frowned. He cleared his throat and scurried back to the board. "Yes class, that's _nineteen_ hundred." He smeared out eighteen hundred and scribbled in the correct number while glaring at the attentive student. Several kids in back snickered, and a few heads were turned towards the inquisitor.

Danny flopped back on his chair, resting his feet on the wire tray under the seat in front of him. His second week as a sophomore hadn't gone too well, and the guy at the board made him angry with his chemistry nonsense. At least he was going out with Sam and Tucker after school. Danny smiled and began to trace webbing between the lines of his binder paper. They'd go to an arcade, maybe eat at the mall, see a movie. They'd have fun. No failed tests, homework, or continuums of boredom tonight. He and Sam would probably spend some time together later. Danny glanced away towards the clock. One and a half hours was all that stood between him and cloud nine.

"And that's why all of Dalton's hypotheses are wrong. Now, when the twentieth century came around, there was some more stuff that happened that was very useful." Nevers wrote the date on the board and stole a look at the notes on his desk.

"Oh boy!" someone in back whispered, overcome by the excitement of it all. "More stuff!" Danny chuckled, and muffled laughter peppered the back of the class. The eyes and cheeks of those up front bulged and broke in surreptitious little spouts of air. Someone slapped a hand to his forehead. The girls in back started to giggle again. Danny looked at the clock.

One hour and twenty minutes.

Danny continued his mindless doodles and allowed Sam, his favorite preoccupation, to wander into his thoughts. In his mind's eye he saw the graceful, ebony wave of her hair, her intelligent lavender eyes, and her little smile. Danny grinned into space as he recalled their shared affections in movies, Amity Park, and their quick little hallway pecks and hugs. He remembered their first kiss, a light smooch that had deepened into a passionate catharsis. He had just woken up in the hospital after their ordeal with Alex, and Danny had been so glad to have her back. His scribbles darkened and deepened at the recollection of Alex. He still hated that ghost, if it even was a ghost.

"From this graph you can see that the observations matched pretty well with the theory, but let's get some units on blah blah blah blah blah..."

Danny glanced up at the teacher in annoyance, checking for notes of a test and finding none. He sat up in his chair. In any case, he and Sam had been together for nearly six months now, and six months deserved something special, but he had no idea what he was going to do for it. For the third time that week, Danny thought that he really should sit down and figure out the exact date of the anniversary. He never had gotten that stupid month rhyme down, and his previous attempts had pegged the anniversary's date as two or three weeks distant. Danny stopped doodling and tried to remember the months.

As he put pen to paper, the middle C tone of the bell began to sound. Kids around him rushed up from their seats and dashed for the hall, creating a bottleneck at the doorway. Danny scrambled to collect his things and joined the throng in their race to the last hour.

"Don't forget chapter one review questions!" Nevers called after them.

After the mandatory stop at his locker, Danny checked in at ceramics. That day's lesson turned out to be the art and science of coaster-making.

Danny groaned and looked up at the clock.

The teacher, a serpentine woman with aquiline eyes and centipede lips, whipped around to glare at him. "Something you'd like to add to the lesson, Mr. Fenton?"

"No, not really ma'am." Danny squirmed in his chair and cracked an apologetic smile.

She continued to glare at him before grunting a curt "Good" and returning to the rest of the class. People looked at Danny with suppressed grins.

Forty minutes.

Danny sat up straight and focused on the teacher. He nodded and responded to questions and appeared a bright-eyed, eager student bent on learning the art of coaster-making. He refused to look at the clock, and he followed all instructions completely and precisely.

The waiting was driving him out of his mind. If he didn't work, he'd explode. Who has a stern ceramics teacher? No one. He had to be the one who got stuck with the devil's sister for a pottery teacher. His patience began to crack over a lump of potential coaster. Danny still had a ghost or two in the thermos. Maybe a little distraction would speed things up. He noticed that the other kids were talking faster and more loudly. Was it possible that it was almost time to go? Dare he look at the clock? Danny couldn't resist, and to his amazement and joy he found that school would end in less than ten minutes.

"Okay class, good job today. Put your unfinished work on the shelves with your initials on it, and go ahead and pack up." Danny had his backpack on before her sentence was finished. He tossed his pile of coaster on the aluminum shelf and waited until that melodious bell rang throughout the school. Danny hustled down the hallway and out onto the school lawn, following the current of eager escapists. The warm shine of the Sun struck his skin, and he took a breath of the autumn air, relishing the sweet scent of the weekend. Blinking in the sunlight, Danny looked around the yard for Sam and Tucker. He walked to the edge of the sidewalk to wait. Kids continued to pour forth from the school, and as he watched a familiar red cap came bouncing onto the lawn.

Danny waved him over. "Hey Tuck!"

Tucker strode over to him, a sour look on his face. "I swear that was the longest day."

"Tell me about it. You ready to go waste some time?"

"Oh, yeah," Tucker laughed. "I'm ready. We going to the arcade?"

"Probably. I'm a little low on money, but the park's free."

"Any ghost-hunting today?" Sam asked. She had appeared between them with a load of books in her arms and an eager, wide-eyed gaze of relief.

"Good to see you Sam," Danny offered, smiling. He moved to hug her but put his hands in his pockets instead. He knew Sam admitted only occasional touching, particularly in public, even though Danny himself would have welcomed it.

Danny cleared his throat and continued. "No. I don't think so. Things have been really quiet over at the lab, and I could use a break." A car horn sounded behind them, accompanied by a symphony of others. The threesome was used to the sound, so they paid no attention. The sound of traffic was heavy and unremarkable at that time of day. "We could-"

"Hey Danny!" a husky voice called. "Come here!" Danny groaned internally and turned, hoping it wasn't who he knew it was.

He watched in chagrin as his father threw his arm back and forth in greeting. He was parked in a red zone, blocking a full lane of traffic. The angry line of cars behind him laid on their horns and cussed or gave him the bird, leaning out the windows and shouting at him. A traffic guard started to walk over to him, watching the lasers and satellite dishes atop his father's automotive monstrosity with mingled curiosity and caution. The guard had his hand over a radio on his belt and walked with a stiff gait. Jack Fenton continued to swing his thick, tangerine arm back and forth, grinning at Danny.

"Sorry guys I've gotta go," Danny breathed. He bolted across the field with Sam and Tucker close on his heels. Reaching the car, Danny stuck his head through the window and spoke in a panicked whisper. "Dad! Stop it, this is really really REALLY embarrassing and if it wasn't Friday I'd be in for it tomorrow. I'll see you at home in fif-"

"Danny! We're going to a baseball game tonight!" Jack boomed, his good cheer undiminished.

"I-" Danny stopped and blinked, trying to catch his thoughts. "I... wait, what?!"

Jack pushed open the door and motioned for Danny to get in. "Come on! We're going to ESP Stadium." Jack whipped out a sheet of print-outs and waved them at Danny. "We've got special admittance to the game!"

Maddy poked her head between the driver and passenger seat. "Your father thinks Jerry Jones is using ghost energy, and all the excitement is bound to generate some kind of spectral-"

"Yes yes, but there'll be GHOSTS, Danny. There'll be GHOSTS!" Jack's blue eyes shone with excitement.

Danny turned gestured to Sam and Tucker. "But I-"

"Don't worry sweety, your friends can come too. Hurry up, though. We have to get a good parking spot." Maddy took the papers from Jack and ducked out of sight.

Danny turned and sighed. "Do you guys want to come?" Sam frowned and bit her lip. Tucker shrugged and started to respond, but before he had the chance, the four of them were accosted by the traffic guard, a mustached fellow in his thirties wearing shorts and a Goliaths baseball hat. "You have to move the, uh, vehicle, sir. This is a red zone. If you punks want some advice," he said, turning to Danny and company. "Go. Jerry Jones has six hundred and ninety-nine home runs, and you guys must be nuts if you don't want to see him hit seven hundred." The guard folded his arms and looked away at the traffic. "Jerry Jones'll be a real legend after this. You don't want to miss it."

Sam rubbed her arm and moved towards the RV's back door. "Alright, I'll go."

"Me too," Tucker agreed, following her in. Danny jumped up behind them, and the three of them threw down their backpacks and buckled into the RV's cheap, hard cushions.

The guard slapped the back windows and glowered at Jack. The traffic noise had become more insistent, and some cars had begun to cut into the lanes of oncoming traffic. "Now that that's finished, you have to-whoa!" He jumped away as Jack hit the gas, pressing the passengers to their seats. Maddy had been working in the laboratory portion of it, and she yelled and stumbled before moving up to the front passenger seat.

Danny sat between Sam and Tucker in the back. Jazz sat one row up, clutching a notebook and several textbooks in her lap.

"You're going too?" Danny asked.

"They wanted me to come along," Jazz said, plainly irritated. She turned around to look at them and sighed. "I suppose it would be good chance to observe the behavior of a large group of highly excited, highly intoxicated sports fans. But I was scheduled to tutor somebody today." She frowned and folded her arms over the seat.

"Not us," Sam chirped. "We wanted nothing more than to be dragged off to a baseball game on Friday night!" Jazz laughed.

Tucker shrugged. "I'm actually pretty happy about it. I've heard some good things about this Jones guy."

"Really?" Danny asked. "Please don't say he's a ghost."

"No, that's just your dad talking. People are saying he'll be a legend, though."

Jazz sighed and turned back to her books. "Maybe for some segment of the population. I missed an appointment for this."

"I went to baseball game years ago," Sam recalled with a smile. "It was actually kind of fun."

Danny looked over at her. "I never knew you were into baseball. What was it like for you?"

Sam fidgeted sheepishly with the hem of her skirt. "Well, I was in a luxury box, so..."

"So you were too busy eating prawns and playing in the hot tub to pay attention," Tucker stated.

"Basically."

Danny shrugged. "There's worse ways to spend an afternoon."

"Like ghost-hunting?" Tucker smirked and scootched to the side as Danny tried to elbow his ribs, but failing that, he went for the shins. Jazz looked up from her books but didn't turn around.

"Shut up, Tucker," Danny whispered.

"The engine in this thing is way too loud for your parents to hear us, and I'm just saying that we don't do ghost stuff nearly as often as in freshman year-"

Sam looked at him in annoyance. "We've gone over this, Tucker."

"-and I miss it. Did Alex take the fight out of you or what, Danny?"

"No, no he didn't," Danny objected. "There's just more to life than stupid ghosts."

Tucker snorted. "Like you and Sam?"

"Well, yeah," Danny said, taken aback.

Sam leaned over to meet Tucker's eyes. "Don't be jealous, Tucker. There have been ghosts flying around before any of us were born. Danny doesn't have to deal with all of them. Just the seriously hurtful ones." She let Danny take her hand.

Tucker wasn't convinced, but he settled back in his seat and didn't say anything for the rest of the ride. Sam glanced at Danny with concern, but Danny squeezed her hand and glanced between her and the brooding Tucker with a half-smile. He didn't think Tucker was seriously upset. In all likelihood he'd be just as loud and geeky as usual when they got to the park. In the seat ahead of the three, Jazz sighed to herself and returned to her books.

The ride lasted a tolerably short hour. The Fenton RV drew stares from the surrounding traffic, but nobody stopped them, to the relief of all involved. They hit a bottleneck on their way to the city's downtown. Hordes of Goliath fans were waiting in massive, infuriated lines for parking. Jack barely managed to maneuver the RV through the traffic and into a good spot close to the park.

Jack leapt from his metallic tank and cased the park with knitted brows. "Yes, Maddy, I can feel it. This place is just crawling with ghost energy."

"You think so?" Maddy looked dubious, the red eyes of her lab suit turning to watch the crowds. "All these people might drive them off."

"Nonsense. Ghosts love to wreak havoc, especially on large crowds like this." He squinted at the ballpark before turning to the back of the RV. "Better get the equipment out."

Danny and his friends dismounted from the RV and stretched. Tucker blinked at all the people. "Jeez, this place is gonna be packed. Mr. Fenton, where are our seats?"

Danny's father emerged with an armload of fancy metal boxes, guns, and nets. "I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway, since we'll all be out ghost-hunting!"

"Right," Danny nodded. He pointed toward the park. "Okay. But wouldn't it be good if you had some eyes in the stands, you know, to keep an eye on the field?"

Jack brightened. "Good thinking, son! You should take the seats! Ask your mother where they are."

"Here you go." Maddy offered Danny, Tucker, and Sam their tickets. "The tickets have the seat numbers on them. I think they're on the promenade level somewhere. Reserved."

"Thanks Mrs. Fenton," Sam said. The three of them started to walk off.

"Wait, Danny!" Jack trotted up to him and thrust a radio in his hands. "Let us know it you see anything."

"We're working on channel twelve," his mother called.

"Okay, thanks!" The three of them scurried off, leaving Jazz to spin her own story to get out of the ghost hunt. They hurried through the streaming crowds of fans and past people begging for tickets or charity. Sam stopped at an old woman sitting on a filthy, ragged bed sheet and holding a cardboard sign scrawled with something illegible. Sam's face creased in dismay, and she dug in her pocket and handed the woman a ten.

The woman took it, her care-worn face lifting for a moment to meet hers. "God bless you, dear." Sam gave her a warm, brief smile before hurrying to catch up with Tucker and Danny on the bridge.

Half the park was built on a landfill, and they could see it from the bridge, a metal and cement wall extending down into the dark, rolling waters. Danny felt the bridge vibrate under the footsteps of the masses and entertained a brief worry that it would collapse. Of course the bridge must have been built well, and even if it did collapse he could go ghost. He forced a smile and looked out over the water. He gasped at the sight and called to Tucker and Sam.

"What?" Tucker asked.

"Look." Danny pointed out over the water. Twenty or thirty kayaks and sailboats had congregated at the tip of the ballpark, directly behind the walled-in stands of right field. From the bridge, Danny could see that they were well-equipped with snacks, radios, and an unhealthy amount of optimism.

Sam crossed her arms and looked out at them. "Can't say I blame them. If it's really such a big deal, whoever catches number seven hundred is going to be rich. It's not a bad trade-off."

Tucker leaned out, threatening to topple over the rail. "Say, do you have a kayak, Sam?"

Danny laughed. "Very funny, Tuck. Come on." Danny tugged him toward the park. "Let's get going." They pushed their way into the park and up three flights of concrete stairs and onto the promenade level, a wide, open-air hallway that looked out onto the field and curved from third to first base. People swarmed around the hall, stopping occasionally at the Goliaths dugouts to buy hats or clothes. Most stopped to feed at the beer stands, pretzel joints, and recessed hotdog grills that lined both walls of the massive hallway. Several already carried full plastic cups of foaming amber beer. The smell was an eclectic mix of sour, meaty, and buttery, with heavy undertones of salt and lard.

Sam couldn't suppress a cough.

Tucker stole a glance at her and took a deep breath, relishing it. "Mmmm, smell that meat."

"Yeah. Just think of all the people trying to kill themselves on bratwurst." Sam gagged and wrinkled her nose at a nearby stand. 'Eat a good dog here!' it advertised. "Disgusting."

Danny shrugged and grinned playfully. "I don't know, Sam. It's a lot better looking than recyclo-compost."

Tucker laughed. "Nice." They clapped hands.

"Very clever, Danny," Sam sighed. "Let's just find our seats." They wandered through the park, following the signs until they found their section. It was just behind third base, shaded by overhanging stands. They sat in their assigned seats and watched the mascot goof around on the field, riding a dinky bicycle around the bases. The fans around them chatted, speculating on the winner, but the majority of the talk concerned Jerry Jones. Jazz came and sat on the edge of the threesome, next to Sam.

"This isn't what I wanted to do today." She looked over the field with jaded eyes.

"I don't know. This really isn't too bad at all." Danny pointed to a family sitting below them. "I'm not even a psychologist and even I find that group interesting."

"Hmm." Jazz leaned down for a closer look at them. They were the very essence of the work 'redneck.' Two kids, straw-blonde hair with dark freckles on their ochre necks, and a father with big meaty hands wearing a white undershirt. Jazz shuffled around in her backpack and took out a notebook. "Good point, even though they're pretty... disturbing."

With Jazz happily occupied, Danny turned and looked up toward the promenade. "Do you guys want to come get food?" The park was filling up fast, and it would soon be difficult to leave their rows. Sam declined, but Tucker followed Danny. They returned with a steaming pile of garlic fries and several thick, condiment-laden hot dogs. Sam edged toward Jazz as they sat down.

The game started with a pitch by an employee of an unknown start-up. The excitement rose and bubbled in the crowd as the inning began. The visiting team sped through their three outs, and the crowd began to get excited as their home team succeeded. Sam got up and clapped with the bulk of the Goliaths fans when a particularly good play was made, a bright smile on her face. Tucker and Danny would jump up excitedly and yell encouragement or disparagement somewhat arbitrarily, and everybody generally found himself having a good time, including Jazz, who kept her nose buried in a notebook.

It came Jerry's turn at bat, and the crowd watched him approach the batter's box with baited breath, and then everyone was shouting for him to hit number seven hundred.

One strike.

Two strikes.

The ball whizzed toward him and Jerry turned just quickly enough that it missed his elbow and landed square in the middle of his back. Danny and company leapt to their feet with the crowd to boo and hiss at the pitcher, and Jerry stalked away from the plate, throwing his helmet and bat to the ground.

"They should toss that pitcher out," Tucker fumed.

Sam nodded. "I agree. It's bad sportsmanship."

"I think I've heard that the pitcher gets a warning when the batter is hit," Danny mused.

"That's right," Jazz muttered, continuing to write.

In the fourth inning, Jerry stepped up to the plate once more. Everyone murmured amongst themselves, well-aware that the injury would make the hit more difficult. Jerry geared up for it nevertheless, and the pitcher stared intently toward home as he paced the mound, readying his pitch.

Danny hardly saw the ball. The crack of the bat rang out in the stadium, and a little white speck flew through the air as twenty-six thousand spectators leapt to their feet and jumped, shouted, cheered as the hero below jogged around his bases. The ball's touchdown in the right field stands became the epicenter of a mad scramble, and from the plumes of fireworks surged from the scoreboard into the inky night, erupting in crimson and white showers. Banners bearing Jerry's image unrolled from its girders, and all around Danny the crowd clapped and cheered.

Seven hundred.

The game was largely over after that, but the game reserved one more jewel for Danny. Three or four hundred left their seats to boy pins and jackets commemorating the event. The innings passed, and the Goliaths held a lead of four-zip until the opposing team finally scored one, but only one. Jack's radio chirped occasionally, but the three of them were content to sit and watch the great American sport.

The crowd perked up as a feature came on screen, and a booming voice announced a special, 'strangers in the night' segment of the game. The digital screen focused on two people of the opposite sex, and they would point and yell at their images on the screen and kiss one another. The first couple failed, through the apparent absent-mindedness of the male, so the screen cut to a different pair of smiling college kids who gladly embraced one another. Everyone laughed and awwed at it. Two older fans appeared onscreen, and another kiss was completed. The camera panned back to the first woman, who still couldn't get the man, a balding, brown-haired fellow in his fifties, to notice her. A few more successful shots were shown, and then back to the first woman. She tugged persistently at his sleeve and tried to get her face around to get him, and the crowd erupted as the man finally threw his arms around an unfortunate man sitting next to him to deliver a sloppy one.

Without warning, Danny and Sam flashed up on the screen.

"Oooh, quick qui-Mmmph!" Sam started, but Danny's lips were already on hers. Her eagerness relaxed into the kiss, and the people around them whistled.

"You guys are on TV!" Tucker shouted, but Danny hardly heard him.

He remembered a sign he had seen in the promenade. 'Would you rather be anywhere else?'

As they pulled each other close and Sam's lips pressed against his, Danny had to admit that he could be happy forever in that moment, frozen in that instant in that kiss in that crowd of twenty thousand human beings gathered in celebration of nothing greater than the ability of their fellow man to hit a small, white ball.

---

A/N: Names and events may not be entirely coincidental. This story is the sequel to "Saving Sam," where I show how Danny and Sam hooked up and why Danny has mellowed out. You don't have to read "SS" to follow this, but it would help. Be here next chapter to watch a familiar foe contend with 'the man' in ghost jail.


	2. Jailhouse Louse

Sing to Life

Chapter 2: Jailhouse Louse

Ralph had always avoided this particular part of the prison. Of course, so had everyone else except for the mouthy chump walking next to him.

"It's a myth," Lars asserted while his meaty, lime-glowing hand fidgeted with the plasma gun on his belt. "I used to work for Plas- for someone pretty clever, and I talked to him and he sez this thing ain't nothing but a trick to scare little chickens."

Ralph heard the skittering of rat's feet behind and ahead, the creatures themselves concealed in the faint light. Drops of water snaked down the walls into little dirty puddles on the stone. Ralph's eyes flickered about, seeing the dark eyes of malice and oblivion in every shadow. He wondered if it was sheer pride or just incredible stupidity that made Lars so thick.

Ralph gulped the fear from his throat. "Nuh-uh," he objected. "Now I know someone who actually saw this guy in action with his own two eyes, and this guy, he can shoot lasers out of his eyes and drive you insane with them. That's what my guy sez."

Lars shook his head. "You're just a chicken, Ralph, that's all. Who ever heard of a ghost that can drive you nuts? Not even that one chick, who was that...?" Lars snapped his fingers and looked into the ceiling. "Um, the school one."

"Spectra?"

"Yea yea! Spectra. Anyway, she can't even do what you're saying this guy can do." He shook his head again. "It's a myth for sure."

"Look, Alex has been here six months," Ralph snapped. "Do you know anybody who's worked here longer than that?"

"What're you sayin,' that this ghost of yours got out and beat the entire guard force?"

"Maybe."

"You guys are just paranoid," Lars maintained.

Ralph heard a snap, and he looked to see Lars toying with his gun. Lars caught Ralph's glance and pretended that he had only been adjusting his vest. Ralph rolled his eyes.

"So something opened up somewhere and they all went to work for Skulker, or maybe Plasmius, or some other boss. Doesn't mean this Alex ghost drove 'em all bonkers," Lars scoffed.

"I'm just telling you that there's no amount of money to be gained or lost that'd get me into the thing's cell. Y'know the guys say he isn't even really a normal ghost..."

"Just cuz you don't give about your money doesn't mean I don't give about mine. I'll be damned if I'll let it go just cuz I was too yellow to even open this fake ghost's door."

Ralph shrugged and put his hands up. "Suit yourself. I'm just here to witness and count a minute." He gave Lars a solemn look. "You know, if anything happens, I'm not going to be holding that door open for you."

Lars snorted. "You're just a little yellow chicken."

Ralph frowned, but he didn't feel obligated to give too much argument. In all likelihood, Lars would be comatose for the rest of his life, and Ralph didn't need to make his last moments any worse. He felt a pang of shame at the thought, but Lars had it coming. He'd strutted around and shot his mouth off about Alex enough that someone had finally put money on the table and said all right tough guy go down there and prove us all wrong.

So here they were.

"This the door?" Lars was picking mold out of the door's number. "Sixty-six?"

Ralph gulped and checked a scrap of paper. "Yeah, uh, yeah this is it."

_Voices at my door. I can hear them I can hear those voices under my door. Those fools they have not learned their lesson so they offer me new sacrifice in exchange for another class. I will not disappoint them._

Lars bent down and looked at the knob. "Hmph. We don't have a key. I guess we'll-" He stopped as Ralph dangled an iron key in his face.

"We thought of that." Ralph bent to slide in the key, but jerked up suddenly and ruffled in his vest.

Lars frowned. He wished that they could just get it over with and prove the stories wrong. "What is it?"

"The stuff we have to remember." Ralph finally withdrew a folder of notes and formal records.

At the sight of official records, a bolt of fear shot through Lars. "I didn't know Walker kept files."

Ralph flipped through, searching for something. "He doesn't because the turn-over is so high in here. Alex was a special case."

"How? He get the red carpet coming in here?"

Ralph pulled out a page and began to scan it. "More or less. That halfa brought him in personally. Most of the personnel disappeared..." He paused, perusing the file.

_What's this? They have a file? I shall have to be careful if they know too much._

"If you're going to tell a tall tale, you should know your story. How'd they go?"

Ralph opened and closed his mouth a couple times, searching for a way to phrase it. Finally he just read it off the paper. "Prisoner Sixty-six attempted escape a month after incarceration. The entire guard was compromised, but I managed to contain it using the halfa's method." Ralph glanced farther down the page. "I don't see a footnote or anything about this method."

Lars forced a grin. "That's all B.S. Walker would have trained us to handle-"

Ralph shook his head vigorously. "No he wouldn't. Nobody comes down here. Ever. We'll both be fired-or worse-if we get caught." He looked through the papers again. "I can't find this method Walker talked about. We should just call this whole thing off."

"No. I said I was going to do it," Lars shouted. "And none of your yellow papers are going to spook me."

"Come on, don't do this," Ralph entreated. "You'll lose money, but you won't lose face." Ralph crossed his arms. "It'd actually improve my opinion of you if you didn't insist on this stunt."

_Come on, you dumb bastards. Open this damn door or go away, but shut your damn mouths and do SOMETHING._

"Put in the key," Lars ordered. Ralph stared at him a moment longer, but Lars had his jaw set and his mind made up. Ralph shrugged and shoved the key in, the swift motion hiding the trembling of his hand.

_YES. YES YES YES._

Ralph looked up. "One minute." Lars nodded. Ralph turned the key and swung the door open.

Lars rushed inside, plasma gun at the ready. The metallic clang of the door rang out as Ralph slammed the door behind him. Lars glanced about feverishly, waiting for something to come for him. He licked his lips and cased the room with a fearful eye.

"Are you okay?" Ralph called through the door.

Lars was careful not to let his voice waver. "Just fine, ya chicken. I don't see anything in here, though."

"He's supposed to be really smart. He could be invisible."

Lars nodded and kept his plasma gun up. He tensed, waiting for something to leap out at him, attack him and drive him out of his mind.

He jumped at Ralph's voice. "Thirty seconds."

Lars forced his muscles loose. What was he worried about? If this thing was so bad-ass it would have been on him the second he was in the room. Besides, he had it on good authority from both Plasmius and Skulker that such a thing as Alex was impossible. Completely bogus. Lars puffed out his chest.

"I told you guys that you were all just chickens."

Ralph sighed. "You've still got time. Forty-five seconds."

"Piece of cake." Lars slipped his plasma gun back into its holster and leaned against the wall. He counted out the time in his head, bored and feeling rather smug. Official files. What a load of crap he'd been fed.

"And, that's time," Ralph marveled. "Okay, I'm going to let you out. The minute the door comes open, run like hell."

"Huh. No way. There's nuthin' here." Lars came up to the door. "Open up, timekeep."

The door swung open. A presence flushed by Lars and he heard Ralph make a little choking sound behind the door. Lars rushed out thinking oh man I'm wrong Alex is real-

And he was. He was just a kid, maybe nineteen or twenty years, with untended brown hair, ragged jeans, and a white t-shirt. He was enveloped in an electric black aura that rippled excitedly with his every move. The kid stood over Ralph, fists balled and cocked for a fight, but Ralph could only stand and stare. Lars stumbled back until he hit the wall and just kept edging away. Little black tendrils reached out from somewhere on Alex's face, and these tendrils were dancing and playing in Ralph's eyes. Ralph moaned and collapsed on the floor, mouth open in a silent wail and eyes bulging ebony.

Alex was turning around.

Lars released a strangled gurgle and reached for his gun, but Alex's eyes outraced his motion. Lars gazed into them, entranced and unable to break away, but suddenly, he didn't even want to break away. It was all so pointless, the eyes told him. There was nothing all his empty posturing would ever accomplish, nobody liked him, and he didn't even like himself. The eyes sang a perverted hymn of pure emptiness, nothingness, and futility, and Lars saw in them that he was without purpose, that there was no reason for his life to go on, that he was also a part of the void in those inky orbs.

Alex's face contorted in a hideous rictus of a grin. The oblivion poured out of his soul, through his eyes, and into Lars. He could taste the defeat in him, and it was a marvelous, thoroughly enjoyable taste after nearly five long months of abstinence. This poor meat-head, deluded as he was, had a spirit that burned quite brightly, making Alex's victory all the sweeter. His ocular tendrils withdrew into his eyes as Lars folded, thumping to the floor.

Alex stood over him a moment, relishing the feel of another spirit crippled. The irony was delicious. He'd just convinced this meat-head that nothing in life was worth living, but Alex himself was just now about to race off and enjoy his own life. Alex's face clouded with doubt for just a moment, wondering if 'enjoy' was really the word he wanted.

Alex picked up his feet and streaked away down the halls, impatient to be out. Whatever the word was, he'd get out this time. Alex could feel it. This would be his lucky day. Those fools would never catch him now, if only he could steer clear of that prick Walker. The stench of the basement was already lessening. His memory still held the path through the labyrinth he'd worked out last time. Alex smirked. Lucky for him. Bad for everyone else.

He came to a door and burst through it. Two guards stared at him, eyes wide and bodies frozen. Alex released his darkness, figuring that these two shouldn't take long. And they didn't. Alex's gait developed a drifting swagger as he resumed his flight. That fool Walker hadn't even trained his men against him. What an idiot.

A triumphant smile bloomed across Alex's face. A staircase rose up before him, a grimy chipped cement staircase, and then another door. This door would lead to the upper floors, to the ground floor.

Careful now, Alex thought, hand on the knob. We can't do this all gung-ho like last time. Be systematic. Don't lose control. You can't move when you let everything fly at once, and he'll be able catch you. Hit the underlings and let's GO!

He shoved the door open and let out the darkness in his eyes, taking a certain amount of pleasure in watching the guards fall to the ground insensate under his stare. Just a moment to relish that. There.

Alex dashed for the gate. From his peripheral vision he saw Walker storm into the courtyard. Almost there... The gate rose up in front of him. Alex realized that he couldn't scale it. He needed a key. The guards had keys.

"Alex," Walker shouted.

Alex chafed. He wished that Walker would respect his powers at least enough to sound worried. But he didn't sound worried, he sounded pissed. Alex leaped back towards the fallen guards, closing the distance in a blur. He came to the bodies and tore through their pockets and belts, looking for that one piece of copper that would let him free. Ah!

His fingers closed on a ring of keys and Alex spun around to rush to the gate. Walker missed him by inches. The keys jangled in Alex's fist, an obliviously cheery sound that mocked his dire circumstances. He was at the gate. Alex slammed a key into the hole, praying it was the right one, but he knew it wasn't the right one because it was impossible that he could ever manage to randomly choose the one key he wanted from a ring with about a bajillion others because that sort of thing only happens in movies-

But the gate creaked open.

And a broad, calloused hand closed on his collar.

Alex screamed and whipped around, scratching and kicking at Walker. Walker shoved him back inside the compound and shut the gate, tearing away the key ring with a disdainful jerk and tossing it away. Alex backed up, breathing heavily, as Walker shook his head at him.

"You're a horrible little punk." Walker sauntered towards Alex, matching his steps to Alex's crawling scramble. "No manners. No respect for the law."

Alex's eyes burned and reached, those black tentacles grasping vainly for purchase. He was losing it, he was going to lose it, but he didn't care. If he was going down, so was everyone else within his reach. "I was there. I was out."

Walker sighed. Talking to this one was like trying to explain the criminal justice system to an infant. "No. You weren't out, and you'll never get out. Not on my watch. Do you know why?"

"Danny warned you." The raw hatred oozed from Alex's words. "This is ALL his doing."

Walker shook his head, continuing to advance until Alex backed against the wall. "No. You're not getting out because anybody who knows what you are can beat you."

Alex crouched against his wall, every ghostly muscle in him tensed taught as a piano wire. Walker grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground without effort while Alex thrashed and ripped at his gloved hand.

"You're a phony and a fraud. Fraudulence is a crime, where I come from. You sell stuff that isn't real to people who aren't smart enough to know they're getting a bad deal."

"Let me go. Let me GO you bombastic FOOL!" Alex's eyes exploded all around the two of them. Walker heard a thump as someone unfortunate enough to be within Alex's grasp hit the cement.

Walker sighed. "I've lost enough guards to you for one day." He smashed Alex alongside the head and the darkness petered out and dissipated like fog. "Let's get you back to your cell. We've got a big day tomorrow, you and me." He dragged Alex's limp, black-glowing body back down the hall.

---

Outside the prison, a strange ghost drifted. His green mane flickered unevenly as it watched the prison, waiting to see if there would be anything more.

Things seemed to have quieted down. The ghost clicked open a compartment on its arm and reviewed a tape of the main events. There had been the alarms, first. Plasmius' man had done his job, albeit unknowingly.

The alarms had lasted about a minute and a half, by the count on his screen. Then he had seen the gate opened by a humanoid hand. Humanoids had low physical strength, so this one must have a special power to have made it so far. The ghost smiled, pleased at this, and continued the recording.

There had been the black, inky stuff. Just a spatter of it had escaped the prison walls, and it had seemed to him to be fairly solid, like an arm or boneless appendage. Within five seconds, however, this had dissipated.

Skulker shut the panel and activated his rockets. It looked as though Plasmius had been right about this one after all.

A/N: Thanks to all my teeter-totteriffic reviewers. You guys are shuper cool: cheerin4danny, Shadow Spider, Mujitsu Yume, Jaks-girl, and Mrs. Granger-Weasley. Yes, I've changed both title and summary. Notes on that are on my profile, if you guys are interested. In response to cheerin, I was originally planning to have these first two chapters in one long chapter in order to show how Danny is doing in comparison with Alex, but their lengths kind of ruled that out. Thanks fer yer time, and don't forget to drop a review!


	3. Danny Takes a Test

Sing to Life

Disclaimer: Wow, I completely forgot about this. Danny Phantom and all associated characters are the blah blah blah blah blah Nickelodeon blah blah blah. Blah blah don't sue blah. Alex is MINE!

Chapter 3: Danny Takes a Test

The weekend had gone so well for Danny. On Saturday morning, he and Tucker had gone out ghost-hunting at the zoo to catch a ghostly tiger cub. It had startled visitors, but Danny and Tucker found the furry ghost to be playful and benign. They chased it around the zoo and searched for some ghost-mice to feed it, but eventually they had to put it in the thermos. They showed it to Sam, who had vehemently opposed returning it to the ghost zone, but Tucker had saved the day by 'accidentally' knocking the thermos' contents into the portal.

On Sunday, Danny and Sam had gone to a movie. They'd laughed at the comedy, and the two of them made a game of Danny trying to sneak his arm around Sam's shoulder. They'd followed it up with dinner at Nasty Burger and a stroll in Amity Park, and after walking Sam home, Danny had returned to his own domicile with a spring in his step. His parents hadn't even bothered him with any new ghost devices.

Danny looked down at the test lying in front of him. He should have known better than to expect mercy from a Monday just because of a good weekend.

The test declared itself to be on geometry, specifically on the properties of triangles. It asked him to prove this relation given that set of data using only the knowledge he'd presumably acquired while STUDYING over the weekend.

Danny didn't know how he could possibly be expected to study when there were ghost tiger cubs to be caught and Samantha Mansons to be treated to movies, but the test remained ambivalent to these important considerations.

A glance around at the other students wasn't encouraging either. Everyone else worked away without a single pause or nervous pencil tap, heads down and eyes on their papers. The teacher sat reclined at her desk, reading a magazine. The room was silent but for the scratching of pencils on paper.

Danny wondered what planet these people had come from that they found the test easy. Even that idiot Joseph was working away. Danny craned his neck to get a look at his paper. Joseph hunched over his desk, etching out a fire-breathing dragon.

That made Danny feel a little better. Still, Joseph's bad study habits didn't do anything to make up for his own. Danny took one last frustrated look around before starting in on the test, hunching over the paper and fidgeting with his mechanical pencil. He clicked his pencil thoughtfully at first, but it gradually increased in frequency as he met more and more difficult problems. Students started to glare and shush him as the clicking became intrusive, and Danny stopped it altogether when the teacher lowered her magazine to give him a warning look.

He dropped the pencil on his desk and glared out the window, listening to the wind as it played in the trees. Only a few whispy clouds marred the sky, and the Sun's rays painted a choppy, vivid texture on the grass outside. Danny watched it for a moment before returning to his test.

When at last the bell rang, Danny had finished most of the problems. He dumped his paper in the wire tray and grabbed his backpack.

"One moment, Danny."

Danny stopped on the threshold of the door and looked up to see his teacher sorting out some papers. He leaned against the doorjamb, worrying the straps of his backpack as his classmates poured outside.

The teacher stood and asked Danny how he was doing.

Danny shrugged, glancing at the kids rushing around outside. "Fine I guess, Mrs. Lows."

She looked over her glasses at him. "Really."

"Yeah..."

"I saw you were having some trouble on the test today."

Danny shifted his weight and leaned on a desk. "I did okay. It's just Monday. Nobody does well on Mondays."

"Hm." She scribbled a note on a stray scrap of paper and stuck it in a drawer. "You haven't been doing too well in my class recently. We have tutoring after school on Wednesdays, and I'm going to line up an appointment with your counselor for you."

"But I-"

"Listen, I've been wondering if you're ready for this class. I'm afraid that if your grades don't start to come up I'm going to have to put you in Algebra B."

"What?" Danny sputtered. "But I-"

"I'm sorry Danny, but you just might not be ready for this class. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You might just need a little more time to learn the material." The warning bell rang, and the teacher withdrew another note. "Here. I'll write you a tardy note for your next class." She scrawled a message and held it out to him. Danny's eyes pleaded with her, but his teacher didn't budge. He pursed his lips and snatched the note.

"Thanks," he mumbled, starting for the door.

"Danny, you're not a dumb kid. Go to your counselor, come in on Wednesday for tutoring, and we'll see what can be done with you."

Danny listened to the wind and tramped on to his next class.

Nobody else asked anything of him for the rest of the day. His PE class stayed in the gym and played basketball, so Danny took to the hoops and dribbled off some of his geometry frustrations. He shouted and competed along with a team of loose acquaintances, all of them bumping and shoving one another in their efforts to capture the aging school basketball. The game was fair and evenly matched, and Danny found himself caught up in the camaraderie in spite of himself. He jogged back to the lockers sweaty and short of breath, but the test and his threatened status in geometry no longer loomed titanic in his mind.

English class held a discussion of the weekend reading assignment, which Danny had done. Midway through the class he felt a tap on the shoulder, and he turned to take a folded slip of paper from the student behind him. The kid nodded and smiled across the room. Danny followed the gesture to Tucker's smirking countenance. He returned Tucker's grin and unfolded the note. Tucker had sketched in a caricature of the English teacher, teeth bared and snarling, being sucked into Danny's thermos. Danny chuckled and gave Tucker a thumbs-up.

History was his last class before lunch. The only thing he had learned so far was that the easiest was to mitigate the boredom was to sleep through it, so after a nap and a short trip to his locker, Danny dropped his tray down at his friends' lunch table. Sam moved over to make room.

"Hey guys." Danny sat next to Sam. "Happy Monday to you."

"Ugh," Sam groaned. "I hate Mondays. The kids in my class are really slow, and we spent about twenty minutes debating how NOT to spell raconteur."

Danny managed a laugh and rubbed his neck. "Yeah, that can get annoying alright."

Tucker raised an eyebrow. He'd been in a better position than Sam to catch Danny's reaction. He was about to inquire further, but Danny cut him off. "Not now," he mouthed.

Sam looked between them. "Something you guys want to say?"

"Nah," Tucker covered. "Who's your teacher again?"

Sam leaped at the question. "Mrs. Johnson. I swear, that woman does not know how to teach. Just the other day she was telling us that there's a difference between 'tone' and 'mood,' and then she misused them both on the test!"

Danny nodded to Tucker, who acknowledged him with a glance. They'd talk about it later.

---

Danny's mouse rattled like a machine gun as he fired round after round into an advancing swarm of lurching zombies. The dim halls were spattered with gore, and the scant overhead lights flickered, threatening to go out at any moment. To his left, a shotgun cracked out periodically as another player added his own gun to the battle. Danny took a few bites from one of the monsters, but his body armor easily absorbed the blows, and the battle was quickly won. Danny moved the mouse to walk along to the next room.

"Tough day today?" The message appeared in a gray text box at the corner of his computer screen.

"Oh yeah."

"Geometry test?" They both paused for a second to dispense with the undead occupants of that room. A snorting hog-beast gave a grisly cry before crumpling to the tiled floor.

"Yup. How'd you know?"

"Everybody was complaining about it," Tucker replied.

"I have to go in for tutoring on Wednesday! And Lows says she might kick me out of the class."

"Why don't you have Sam 'tutor' you?"

Danny scowled. "Shut up, Tuck."

"Sorry. Couldn't resist."

Danny went back to concentrating on the game. The next task required the two of them to pilot a helicopter over some lab ruins while being bombarded by anti-aircraft fire, and Danny had never been very good at that particular virtual task.

"What're you and Sam doing this Friday?"

The distraction threw Danny out of balance, and the helicopter screamed to the ground and exploded in a blast of debris and fire. Tucker flashed a ":)" in the chat screen.

"I don't know. Why?"

Tucker didn't reply for a couple seconds, so Danny thought it safe to give the copter mission another try.

"Sam says it's your six-month anniversary this Friday."

Danny crashed again. "WHAT? I thought that that wasn't for another couple weeks!"

Tucker sent him another of those annoying smilies. "Oops."

"No kidding oops. I have no idea what I'm going to do." They paused again while Tucker took his turn at the controls. Danny watched him pilot the ruins like he was driving around the block. If he hadn't been worried about the anniversary, he would have been jealous. Tucker eased them to the ground, and their characters pushed open the doors of the next building.

"Do you have any money?"

Danny reloaded. "Nope." He moved the mouse to look over the room. None of the doors were open, and he couldn't see any switches. "Must be one of those stupid puzzle things."

"Don't worry." Tucker's character moved to a row of black, smoking machines. Danny watched the game character's boxy finger punch in a sequence on a control pad, and the boxes stopped smoking. A door to their right opened.

"You're in trouble if you don't have any money," Tucker typed.

"I'll think of something. I wish I didn't have this stupid counselor's call/tutoring business to deal with, though."

Tucker stopped to slay a reanimated rottweiler. "So, I take it you'll want to go ghost-hunting this Wednesday?"

Their characters dashed into a stairwell. Several flights down, a drooling monster roared and strained against its chains, jaws snapping and claws ripping at the metal under its feet. The chains came loose with a snap, and the monster began to pound up the stairs toward the two adventurers. Danny and Tucker cocked their weapons and aimed down at the approaching menace.

"Oh yeah," Danny typed. "I think I will want to go ghost-hunting."

---

A/N: Thanx to all me reviewers: Mrs. Granger-Weasley, cheerin4danny, Wiggle Lizard (x2), Sakura Scout, autumngold, and Divagurl277. (Note to cheerin: the former title was "The Life and Death of Spirits." I dropped it because that's not actually what this story is about.) You're all such nice reviewers, taking the time to read my gargantuan novels. On that note, I am aware that this was a very boring chapter. Do me the favor of putting up with it this time, and you won't be disappointed when the payoff comes. Drop a review and tune in next chapter for prison fun with Alex and Vlad!


	4. Alex Takes a Test

Sing to Life

Chapter 4: Alex Takes a Test

Vlad's boots snapped along the concrete in a lazy jaunt. Skulker padded beside him, his own thick boots thumping heavily. The noise gave their two escorts the creeps. One of them nudged the other and made a wiping motion with his hands. Wish we'd gotten kitchen duty. The other nodded. No kidding. They both breathed easier when the escapees were ensconced in Walker's office. They gave the two guards stationed there a snide glance before shutting the door and hurrying off to play blackjack in the employee's locker room.

Walker didn't notice the exchange. He scowled at his two visitors as they made themselves comfortable in his office.

Vlad plucked a chair from against the wall and seated himself. "So good to see you, Walker."

"What do you two scumbags want?"

"Right to business then?" Vlad shrugged. "Alright. It's not so much a matter of what we want as what we can do for you."

"We want the creature you have contained here," Skulker clarified.

Vlad gave Skulker a dirty look. "Well, that's the specific issue, yes."

Walker looked between the two of them through narrowed eyes. "What're you two talking about?"

"We know you're keeping something special in your basement, Walker. We're only here to take it off your hands."

Walker jumped up from his chair. "You felons have got guts walking in here and asking me to release a prisoner. If it wasn't for your pal here I'd already have you under lock and key."

Skulker crossed his arms and growled.

"Do you even know what Sixty-six is?" Walker demanded.

"No," Vlad said. "Do you?"

"That's not the point."

Vlad smirked.

Walker continued, peeved. "I keep him here because he's got the potential to cause more trouble than all of you other scum put together. And he will, too, if given the chance. And you two," Walker stated. "Couldn't keep him contained if your lives depended on it. Which they would."

"I beg to differ," Skulker growled.

Vlad stood and leaned against the desk, legs crossed and eyes turned down on Walker. "We'll take our chances. You don't have a choice in the matter. And Walker, we wouldn't want anything unpleasant to happen here." His free hand ignited in a ball of pink energy. Vlad began to play with it, making it grow and pulsate. He spoke again in that low voice. "We wouldn't want any unpleasantness to break out that would make you lose face with the rest of the prisoners, or the guard." His eyes flickered to the two eavesdropping guards. They snapped rigid and faced straight ahead at his mention. "You know what unpleasant business can happen if you lose face in prison."

Walker gritted his teeth.

Vlad smirked. "Now, I-"

Walker's swift right hook cleared Vlad's smirk. "Guards!"

The guards reached for their plasma guns far too slowly. A metallic hiss slit the air as a burst of pain flowered on their temples, the world spun and then they were on the ground with Skulker's glinting hand-blade poised above their faces, daring either to move.

Walker's hand was at his own plasma gun in an instant, but Vlad had long since recovered himself. As Walker raised his gun, four Vlads and eight clouds of rippling pink plasma surrounded him.

"That's enough," ordered Vlad's choroused voice.

Walker kept the gun leveled at one of him. "You're breaking the rules."

"What a crying shame," Vlad scoffed. "Put the gun down, or Skulker and myself will free everyone in here, but not before beating you senseless and confiscating your guns."

Walker held his pose for a moment, then the gun clattered to his desk and he was rubbing his hands together fitfully. "Fine. You and Alex deserve each other anyway." Something occurred to Walker that made him stand straight again. As Vlad condensed into one, Walker straightened his jacket and pressed the intercom.

"Let me get him out for you."

Vlad reposed in his seat as Walker began to give orders. He turned to Skulker and grinned. "And you thought this would be difficult. Child's play, I tell you."

Skulker nodded. "So it would seem." Walker was handing out orders with uncanny animation, and a bustling background noise drifted back from the other side of the line. Skulker's green eyes met Vlad's. "We should be careful."

"Oh?" Vlad cast a glance in Walker's direction. His smirk faltered for a moment before returning with its former dour radiance. "It wouldn't hurt. After all, caution is the better part of valor."

Walker clicked off the intercom before Skulker could reply. "I'm having Sixty-six brought up. There's no visiting rooms here, but we can use the office. I'll be back with him in a minute." Walker started around his desk for the door.

"Hold up." Vlad stopped him with a palm. "No funny business."

Walker's mouth drew into a hard line as he pushed past Vlad and out the door. "Keep them here," he shouted back to the guards. They exchanged an uneasy glance as Vlad laughed and shook his head.

"Should we follow?" Skulker asked.

Vlad shrugged. "Why? What's he going to do? For that matter," he turned to the two guards. "What can they do?"

One of the guards managed to clear his throat. "Just keep quiet now sir, there's, uh, nothing to see..."

The other guard smacked his head in his hand as Vlad laughed again.

---

Walker strode down the prison halls, passing door after iron door. The sounds of fighting, cursing, and wailing refused to provide their usual comfort to him, and his incompetent staff wasn't too reassuring either. Walker sniffed. Six was far more reliable than the guard, in his own way. More predictable, too. Come to think of it, Alex was much more of many things than most ghosts. Predictable, manageable, and utterly despicable. A dictionary definition of lawlessness, and those two miscreants wanted to take him away and do who-knows-what with them. Walker was through with Vlad's requests for prisoner backgrounds, henchmen, and succubae, and he wasn't getting his hands on Six. Not while Warden Walker was around, he wouldn't.

Walker grunted as something jarred his shoulder. He whirled to see the anxious face of his captain cringing against the wall. "Excuse me sir, I didn't see-"

"You. Come here. Walk with me." Walker turned around and continued on his way. The shorter captain hurried to keep up. "Get your men out. All of them, except the two at my office."

The captain nodded, trying to throw back his shoulders and keep his back straight as he walked. Mustn't loose face. "Will do, sir. Anything else?"

Walker continued down the hall, down the labyrinth of chipped concrete that would take him to the bowels of his prison. "Everyone gets an hour out in the Zone, wherever they want. If anybody's gone more than a minute after the hour I will personally hunt him down, torture him, and give him twenty thousand years to think about whether or not his minute was worth it. That clear?"

"Yessir!"

"Good." Walker arrived at the first crumbling staircase and gave his captain a blank look. "Why are you still here. Get everyone out! Prisoners in their cells. Do it!" Walker shouted.

The captain scurried off, delivering orders through his radio as he left. Walker flicked on his own radio to listen to the evacuation, hearing the prattle of the captain over the shouting of the prisoners. A fainter echo of the noise drifted to him from the passages, the clamor of spectral voices and the occasional zap of a plasma gun. When Walker was satisfied that everything was smoothly under way, he continued on his way. The noise of his prisoners receded as he descended.

Those voices belonged to _his_ prisoners, and it was _his_ job to contain their lawlessness. His job and no one else's, especially not some deadbeat halfa's from Wisconsin.

Walker paused at the bottom of a stairwell without immediately knowing why. Oh, that's right, he remembered. This hall belonged to Six.

The radio at his waist crackled. "Your orders have been carried out, sir."

He walked up the last staircase a few steps. No use in giving Six any unnecessary information. "Remember, one hour or ten thousand fold."

"Yessir."

Walker clicked off the radio and paused in the motion of returning to the hall. He could only remember once or twice in his life that he'd been truly uncertain, both times thousands of years ago. For Walker, the job of law enforcement didn't have any grey areas, but this situation did. This thing with Six didn't feel right, but there was no other way to do it. Six, for all his evil, was a type of ghost that nobody had ever seen before, and perhaps it was a bad idea to exploit him so lightly.

Walker shook his head and continued down the hallway. Six was HIS prisoner to exploit and this wasn't being done lightly. He had nothing to worry about.

Walker closed the short distance between the stair and the cell in quick, purposeful steps and stood in from of the door, twirling his key ring around a finger. He didn't know if a door could actually exude malice in a physical sense, but if it was then this one was doing it. "Sixty-six."

"Walker." The voice echoed out from hairline cracks between the door and the wall, its hollow malice unfiltered in spite of the barrier. "I hear your men are gone. Are you going to let me out?"

"Shut up," Walker replied. "You've got visitors."

"Have I now?" Sixty-six seethed.

Walker hoped he wouldn't have to knock him out again. That would cost too much time. "Yes. The guards are, for the most part, gone. There's two _gentlemen _upstairs, who are a grave threat to this prison. I'm going to lead you up to them, chained, and I'll let you... do what you want with them."

The voice was a whisper. "Humans?"

"One of them, partway."

"Danny!"

"Don't get excited. You're no good to me if you lose it down here. It's Vlad Plasmius and Skulker. Vlad's the halfa."

"Strange names to me."

Walker stood away from the door. "Take the deal or leave it."

A pause. Then Sixty-six's voice. "I'll take it."

Walker let out a breath and unlocked the door. The prisoner strolled out, hands folded neatly behind his back. His eyes already shone black.

"Let's go, Sixty-six."

"My name is Alex."

Walker secured his hands and feet in manacles. "Your name is Sixty-six. Get movin.'"

Walker felt a pang of self-contempt as he strode down the hallway, walking side by side with Alex. No, not Alex. Six. He shoved his prisoner ahead and muttered for him to hurry along. Walker didn't like the way he was smiling. Every time somebody smiled at him it was usually bad, and in Six's case something bad could mean something serious. Walker gave Six another shove on the stairs, just for good measure. Six nearly fell flat on his face.

Alex didn't mind Walker's gruff manner at all. His eyes flickered around the prison, taking in every puddle in the halls and every crack in the walls. He listened to the swish of fabric from his and Walker's clothes, trying to gauge the relative proximity of Walker to himself, the approximate length of Walker's arms, the likely position of his fists. One sound, one piece of sensory input stood out above all others: the jangling of the keys on Walker's belt.

Walker's brow furrowed. No doubt about it, Six would try something before this was all over, but he'd handle it, just like he handled every other one of Six's disturbances. Shouldn't be too much trouble. Vlad and Skulker might put up a fight, though, and Walker wasn't sure that he'd be able to deal with that. Six would probably get them the first time, so it shouldn't be a problem. Walker figured he'd give Vlad and Skulker separate cells, one or two levels above Six. A prize position for a couple of prize-

Alex snatched the keys and plasma gun from Walker's belt and jetted off.

Walker gasped and raced after him, hoping that he was wrong about their proximity to the main gate.

As the desperate chase ensued not a hundred yards away, Skulker paced around the office while Vlad sat back, feet crossed on Walker's desk. The guards shifted and tightened their holds on their plasma guns.

"What's taking him so long?" Skulker grumbled.

Vlad yawned. "He must have this guy in a more secure place than the others. He doesn't exactly sound like the kind of prisoner you'd want to toss in with the regular thugs."

"Pfft. You got that right."

Vlad looked up to the guards. "What did you say?"

One of them gave the other a dirty look. "We didn't say anything, sir."

"Don't be shy," Vlad said, lighting up a hand.

The guard looked between Vlad's smirk and the pink plasma. He turned to mutter a curse at his less intelligent coworker, but the other's only response was an apologetic shrug.

The guard sighed. "You wanna know what I know? Fine. I don't know much. We all just got replaced, most of us came in on Saturday, fricken' warden wouldn't even wait for today, noooo, he sez he needs us on the weekend-"

"The prisoner."

"Right. Warden told us two alone how to deal with the man downstairs. He sez he's some kinda thing like Spectra."

Skulker perked up. "The student leech."

"Yeah. But this guy um, 'corrodes your mind' Walker said. Coma-style. He says we deal with it by remembering it's a lie. The stuff he tells you, I mean."

"I hardly believe you, but I'll humor it. What's he tell you?"

The guard looked at the ground. "I don't know. Walker said it's something about a wacko philosophy. Warden says it's fake, or it's not valid, or something, and that if you remember that then whatever it is he does has no effect."

Vlad and Skulker exchanged a glance. "Funny how Walker didn't mention that to us," Vlad mused.

A radio at the guard's waist crackled. "Main gate. Weapons ready. Now." The guards hurried from the room.

Vlad jumped up. "Speak of the devil." They left the office at a run, just in time to see the guards turn a corner ahead. Vlad felt something odd behind them, and he turned to see a dark blur closing fast. A green ray shot out from it too fast to dodge that wrapped Skulker in a pair of plasma cuffs. The inky smudge shot by them and followed the guards around the corner. Vlad sped after it in the sudden company of Walker.

"How is it that you keep anybody here?"

"Shut up."

They left Skulker behind and rounded the corner, both geared to use every bit of power they had. The turned the corner and Vlad stopped in his tracks, glancing between Walker and the scene that met them.

Six had been wrapped in green plasma constraints and a guard was loping toward him. The second guard writhed nearby, immobilized by his own plasma constraints. As Vlad and Walker looked on, the first guard caught up with Six and yanked away the key ring.

Vlad sighed. "Get everybody back to the office. Let's have no more distractions."

Walker dragged Six along the floor by his legs until they returned to Walker. Six was turned over to Walker, who carried him less gently. He dumped Six outside the office like a piece of luggage and stood guard over him while Vlad and Walker haggled in the office.

Alex stewed on the ground. How could he have been caught by the common guard? Walker must have trained them, and _somebody_ had trained Vlad and Skulker, but that was no excuse. The guards were all notorious imbeciles, and someone like himself should have been able to beat them easily. Alex looked down as a pink light flashed under the office door.

He silenced his indignation and held still, ears open.

Skulker cuffed his ears. "No eavesdropping."

Alex smiled through gritted teeth. "Of course."

It was entirely possible that he'd go right back to the cell when Walker came out. Escape would be more difficult now that the guards were trained. Alex's aura shuddered with contempt. His mouth twitched sharply and his eyes flashed black.

Vlad and Walker strode from his office. Alex found Walker's pained expression and smoking lapel reassuring, but the two of them were good-humored, all things considered.

Alex frowned.

Walker led the group through the prison in silence, and they hadn't gone fifty paces when Alex recognized the path. He'd been to the torture room not two days ago, punishment for his latest attempt, but now Walker was going to set him up in front of these two and tease him like some kind of freak.

Alex kicked at Skulker and tried to wrench away, but Skulker just gave him an irritated look and yanked him forward again. Vlad looked back and made some witty comment that Alex couldn't hear. His own rage was loud enough to drown everyone out. Alex's eyes were boiling, slender black tentacles writhing, but there was no one to use them on. Everybody knew who he was, and he was now a sideshow performer.

They came to the torture lab and threw him in and locked the door. That was odd. How were they supposed to make him suffer without being present? Alex shrugged and pulled himself up on a steel table against the wall, opposite a one-way window that looked into the chamber.

After several minutes of waiting and making obscene gestures at the window, Alex's frustration turned to anger. He was here and now it looked like they'd gone and left him. That wasn't right it wasn't fair they couldn't do this to-

Alex stopped himself. He had to save his anger for something useful. But what was useful now? Those fools had gotten the better of him. He was being treated like a weapon, no more significant than a clip of bullets or a case of grenades, and they thought he was a puppet. Alex's darkness writhed. He'd show them. If they thought he wasn't important then-

But if they thought he wasn't important, then why all this special treatment? Why the hell was he getting so angry? Sure he was being used, but he should be concentrating on the motives, intentions, temperaments, and weaknesses of those morons, not wasting time getting angry at them, especially since they were immune to his kind of anger. But it _was_ so hard to stay focused. He's been free only six months ago, known by few but feared by every one of those few. Now-

Alex stopped himself again. Something was wrong. He wasn't thinking clearly.

_Did we ever?_

Now he'd gone and woken up his other voice. Kiss rational thought goodbye if that thing cut loose.

_Let us out. You don't need a reason._

Alex told it to be quiet. The darkness was common enough, but the voice only showed up when things got really bad. Being alone in a room did not qualify as really bad.

Alex looked around the lab for anything suspicious, but everything seemed in order. A spectral version of Chinese water torture was shoved up against the wall, and the familiar Procrustean bed squatted nearby. Cold butcher knives hung on a rack, glinting in the dim light, and the tools of Walker's dental chair-his personal favorite-rested undisturbed on an immaculate white cloth. Nothing was out of place. Alex examined the ceiling, looking for some new attachment or mechanical antagonist. No new devices, but he spotted something that held his attention for a long moment.

An air vent. He sniffed the air and took in a lungful of something bitter.

"GODDAMN IT!" he screeched. The blackness rose up thick about him. He couldn't believe they were doing this to him, to HIM.

_Let us out._

Alex told it to shut up. If either Walker or his creepy voice thought he'd explode on command, then they were wrong. He wouldn't be anybody's dog. He didn't roll over or beg. They'd see. But it was just so DAMN-

Alex stopped again and focused. His mind was everywhere and the black was almost out. It hardly needed to ask, yet it continued to do so.

_Let us out._

"Shut up," Alex muttered, rubbing his temples. The stuff pounded against the inside of his head, but he thought he could hold it. He was probably just imagining this whole thing anyway. The odds were fantastic that they'd really been able to make such a chemical, especially without any real knowledge of him, and Alex didn't think Walker had advertised his presence. The anger began to ebb, still there but pushing less insistently. Alex could think again. He sighed and dropped back on the table.

He smelled the increased dose before he felt it. As the stuff rushed to his head his mind corkscrewed in fury at everything that was denied him and all the respect he'd never again get and all these damn cells with their insipid prisoners and that DANNY PHANTOM-

Alex blacked out as the darkness consumed him, pouring from him in torrents and searching the empty room for something, anything to suck dry of sanity.

Behind the one-way window, Walker congratulated Vlad and Skulker on their ingenuity. They could manipulate and probably contain Six better than Walker, but as he watched that rising darkness boil in the next room, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was the wrong answer to a question that never should have been asked.

Then again, maybe there was no right answer.

---

A/N: (2 drafts)plus(patch for a minor plot hole)plus(perfectionism)makes(two weeks). Thanx to: cheerin4danny, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, Sakura Scout, The Fuzy Llama, smile7499, and Wiggle Lizard. You are all so awzome. (Note to Wiggle: The game scene in Ch. 3 was invented completely by yours truly.) Mandatory shameless advertising: next on the update list is "Lose Yourself," based on Eminem's hit song, then another chappy of "Sing." I guarantee that it won't take two weeks. Hope you guys enjoy, and don't forget to review!


	5. The State of Denmark

Sing to Life

Chapter 5: The State of Denmark

Danny waded through the masses of screaming hyperactive kids, trying not to dump the contents of his lunch tray on anybody bigger than himself. He spotted Tucker in the crowd and joined him at a bench, letting his plate clatter to the aluminum table.

"Hey Danny," Tucker said around a mouthful of something.

"Hi Tuck." Danny ripped a spork from its plastic wrap and gave some lumpy, yellow, malformed blobs an experimental poke. They didn't explode, ooze, or attack him, so he put one in his mouth. "Hm. Tater-tots."

"Yup," Tucker agreed. "They're really gettin' creative with the menu these days." He jabbed his meat patty and dunked it in some ketchup. "'Least it's still edible. Looking forward to tutoring today?"

"Yeah right. I don't even know anybody who goes to tutoring." He sighed, poking at his food.

"I've heard Chris and Duncan help out," Tucker offered. "A lot of the smarter showoffs like to hang around there."

"I guess Duncan's not so bad. Still, it's embarrassing." He wondered where Sam was. She was good at math; maybe she could come with him. He around the cafeteria. "Have you seen Sam around today?"

"She said she had to do some make-up thing at lunch." Tucker crossed his arms on the table, leaning across to Danny. "Hey, it _is_ just you and me going hunting tonight, right?" He tapped his fingers tunelessly on the table. "I mean, Sam's not coming, right?"

Danny rolled his eyes and shoved his tray aside. "No Tucker. Sam's not coming. You're way too touchy about all that. We're not planning to team up and sell you into slavery or feed you to one of my dad's stupid machines, alright?"

"Alright! Okay!" Tucker replied. "Whatever." He slumped over the table, staring into the depths of something that may have been peas at one point. He hadn't meant to tick him off, but Danny did spend a lot of time with Sam. Some form of payback for that last comment was called for. He stirred his peas for another moment before grinning up at Danny. "Do you know what you're doing for her anniversary yet?"

Danny grimaced. "Nope."

"She's expecting something really special, you know. She thinks this is a big deal."

Danny put his head in his hands. "I know she does."

Tucker leaned on the bench. "So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Danny mumbled. "Hey, um, Tuck, did you ever, uh, finish that thing you were doing?"

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "The drafting project?"

"Yeah. That."

"I finished it. It was of the thermos, you know." Tucker rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a three-dimensional image of the thermos, complete with metal plating, platinum sheen, and lime rubber buttons.

Danny took it, letting his eyes roam more or less randomly. "Wow. That's um, pretty good." He squinted at it, trying to find something specific to point out. "It looks... good."

Tucker rolled his eyes and took back the picture. "Don't worry about the dumb present. You'll think of something."

"Yeah, I guess so." Danny's spork wandered through a few remaining tater-tots. He still had no idea what he was going to do for it.

Tucker reached over and shook his shoulder. "Man, we just need to get you out at night more often. A little ghost-butt-kicking will have you back to normal in no time."

"Maybe." Danny continued to stir his tots.

The next period saw Danny into his counselor's office. He ambled into the small room and slouched down in a padded chair next to her desk. She greeted him and shifted around a few papers, shuffling through them before organizing them inside a nearby filing cabinet.

The counselor looked at him with thin brown eyes, wrinkling her nose at his posture. Danny glared at her until she let off. She pulled up his transcript on the computer and asked him how he liked his classes, how school in general was going. Danny thought that the session might not be so bad, in spite of its cold beginnings. He thought that right up until she touched on his geometry grades. Danny scrambled to the defensive, mustering his paltry brigade of teacher-weaseling tactics as the onslaught against his competence commenced.

"I'm just not very good at math!" he insisted. "I'm going in for tutoring after school today. I don't need to repeat the entire class."

The counselor drew her mouth into a line. "We all want you to graduate, Danny, and I've heard your parents expect you to get into a good college." She turned the computer screen for him to see. "Thing is, most good colleges want better grades than what you're showing me here."

Danny didn't need a good look at his transcript to know it wasn't good. "Yeah, maybe I wasn't doing too well in freshman year. But look, at the end my quarter grades really picked up. See?" Danny sat up to show her, pointing out a line of B's and C's from his first three quarters that jumped to a series of B's and A-'s in the fourth quarter. "And this year just started. I just, um, needed better study habits. My sister started giving me a hand." He was sure she'd take that bait. It was a lie, but it was close enough to the truth. His grades had turned around after his run-in with Alex, and there was no denying that Jazz _had_ had a strong hand in that victory.

He just hoped his excuse would sell.

The counselor swept back her hair and considered it, looking over his transcript again. She sighed. "Alright. But if you start to have trouble-"

"I know, I know. I'll get help. Just don't move me down a class."

"Alright. I guess we'll see how this goes." She signed his pass but stopped in the act of giving it to him. She withdrew it, examining a paper lying at her elbow. Danny tilted his head to get a better look at it. The xeroxed form had been filled in with his own handwriting, dated the beginning of freshman year. Danny turned his eyes away when he saw what it was.

"Says on your career survey that you want to be an astronaut." The counselor looked up at him. "Is that true?"

"Yes." Danny squirmed in his seat.

"Do you know about all the training they have to go through? All the classes they have to take? Do you know what-?"

"Yes, I know how rigorous it is." Danny kept his eyes fixed on his shoes.

The counselor crossed her arms, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. "You know you'll never make it into space without good grades."

Danny clenched his teeth shut. She was being way too generous with that statement. He'd be lucky to end up as some scientist's secretary, let alone an actual astronaut, even with good grades.

The counselor shook her head and gave him the pass. "Get back to chemistry."

"Thanks," Danny said. He took the pass and walked out of the office and into the halls. He kind of missed the days when he had taken the whole space-astronaut-thing seriously. Those were ambitions for normal students, though. He would just have to find some new ones. Maybe something in the line of costumed super heroism. Danny smiled to himself. That wasn't so bad. Spiderman had worked as a photographer, and Superman was in journalism. The Iron Man was some kind of accountant, and the Fantastic Four even got federal funding. Granted none of those people were real, but for imaginary characters they did pretty well.

He turned the knob of his chemistry room and walked into a class full of dozing or daydreaming students. Nevers looked up at him from the whiteboard.

"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Fenton. Take your seat. We were just going over intermolecular forces."

Danny slept through chemistry and played like a first-grader all through pottery. No longer would he, Danny Phantom, be a victim of the precocious days of the week. No sir. He was taking charge. He had been assigned to make a coaster. Well, this was going to be the best friggen' coaster Ms. Trey had ever seen. Look at all those cool shapes and wobbly borders it had. There was no way he would do badly on this.

The bell rang. Danny looked up at the clock. It couldn't be that late already, but it was. This coaster was due today. Trey was putting it in the kiln after school, but he hadn't finished. Danny shrugged and packed up his stuff. The last of the students were filing out the door, pushing and shoving one another to get by. He looked back at his little coaster.

"Danny?" His teacher was looking over his shoulder. Danny hadn't seen her come up.

"Hi, Ms. Trey. You're firing these after school?"

She inspected his work, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards. "You did a nice job on this." Most students didn't take this assignment very seriously. "You're not finished."

"Nope. I can't stay after, either." Danny slugged on his backpack.

"Do you want to come in early tomorrow?"

He broke into a smile. "Sure."

"Alright. I'll be here from seven to eight, and lunch." She put it up on a rack for him, separate from the others.

"Thanks a lot." Danny walked from the room. He must be turning into a sissy or something to be caring about a stupid coaster. Still, he had to admit that it would be a pretty nice stupid coaster. Chances were slim that anybody would notice or care anyway. There were only two who might, and he didn't think it would matter to Sam. Tucker had taken sewing freshman year, so Danny didn't was pretty sure that he would make a stink about it either. Tucker had insisted that it was just for the ladies, but he'd still been teased about it.

After a trip to his locker, Danny arrived at the door to Mrs. Lows' classroom. He looked up and down the hall, making sure it was empty. Maybe the pottery thing would be overlooked, but if the jocks caught him here they'd hang him from the flagpole by his boxers and shoot spit wads at him until the sun went down. If they could catch him, that is.

Which they wouldn't.

Danny smiled and pulled the door open. Ten or fifteen kids sat in clusters of three at various corners of the room. A larger group had gathered around Lows, who was hunched over a sheet of paper working out a problem for them. One of them had stubble, probably one of the seniors from her calculus class.

Lows spared a glance at him. "I'll be with you in a minute."

"Okay." Danny sat on a desk nearby, resting his backpack in the seat. Chris and Duncan were in one corner, explaining something to Joseph. Joseph was wearing his trademark clueless look, and Chris and Duncan were exasperating themselves. All three of them were in Danny's class.

He wandered over and sat next to them. "Hey. What's up?"

Chris shook his finger at Joseph. "This man... is an idiot."

Joseph shrugged, grinning. "Oh, come on. Explain it to me one more time."

"One more time to add to the several thousand OTHER 'one more times'?" Duncan asked. "You're just jerking us around."

Danny pushed Joseph's hefty body to the side and looked at the problem they had been working over. He tapped a finger on it, trying again to solve it. He hadn't been able to do it on the test. "Did you guys get this one?"

"Sure. You want some help?" Chris asked. "Cuz this guy sure doesn't."

"Meanies." Joseph laughed and got up, pushing Danny into his chair. "Good luck."

Danny listened while Chris and Duncan gave it their best shot. They explained the proof to him step-by-step, pointing out how they'd done it and checking periodically to see if he was following. Danny was nervous and did a lot of nodding and smiling for the first couple minutes, but the intimidation wore off when he realized that the two smarter students were not helping him for the sole purpose of insulting him, and Danny found himself actually learning something.

Duncan finished the problem with a flourish of 'ergos.' Chris glanced over to him. "Do you get it?"

Danny perused their work. To his amazement, he found that he could follow every one of their steps. "You know, I think I do."

"Praise the Lord on high he gets it!" Chris shouted.

"Hey!" Lows called. The forest of students around her looked up at the noise. "Keep it down." She smiled to see Danny working with them. "You getting help over there?"

"Yeah."

"Great." Lows returned to her cluster.

Danny had them help him with several other problems while Joseph sat by and drew dragons. The pair made excellent teachers. They were enthusiastic when he got the problems right and patient when he needed help, and both of them started cussing out Joseph when he started to say something stupid, which happened every time he opened his mouth.

Danny listened to them. Here were the kids who might be astronauts. He'd probably pass the class, but he'd never get good enough at this stuff to make the grade. Something very interesting occurred to Danny, and he burst into a grin smack in the middle of a problem. Chris and Duncan gave him a funny look and asked what was wrong.

"Nothing." He couldn't wipe the smile off his face. "Keep going."

After an hour had passed, Lows stood and announced that she had to leave. "That means that you all have to leave. Go back to your lives and try to forget that it's Wednesday until tomorrow." The students filed from her room, walking off in a slow stream. Lows signaled for Danny to wait. When she had finished wrapping up one last calculus problem, she turned to him. "Well?"

"It was alright," Danny admitted. "Not bad at all."

Lows nodded. "A lot of times the problem is that geometry is just a different way of thinking. Once you get the hang of it, it gets easier."

"That's true. Chris and Duncan were a big help."

"Those two clowns usually are." Lows stood and began to pack her own bags. "Nice kids. Had Duncan's sister a couple years back. Brilliant family."

"Oh." Danny watched her stuff some books and papers away into a handbag. "So, about staying in the class..."

"Don't worry about it," Lows chuckled. "Come in every Wednesday, during lunch or after school when there's something you don't understand, and I'm sure we'll have you up to speed in no time."

Danny smiled. "Great!" He left for the door. "Bye."

"See you tomorrow."

Danny sped home and tromped down to the lab. He wondered what his dad had been up to. Four days had gone by without any explosions or inventions, and usually one of those two happened at least once or twice a day. Explosions were the most frequent, by far. He rustled around the desks, pushing aside papers to excavate a blueprint. It was marked 'Ghost Tickler: makes ghosts laugh?' Danny shook his head. He didn't know why his dad even bothered with kooky stuff like that. The thermos was understandable, but a tickler?

Danny pushed a bin of parts aside and moved toward the steps. He heard another set of feet on the stairs: the short, rapid clicks of his father's lab shoes. Danny put on his best innocent face and prepared an excuse.

"Hey Dad. I was just-"

"Danny! Just the son I wanted to see. I built a new gadget today!" He held up a tiny metal box with a single red button on it. "I built it in my sleep. I don't know what it does, but it looks really cool. Your mother will kill me if I press it and something horrible happens, and Jazz refuses to have anything to do with it. Will you push the button?" He shoved it into Danny's hands.

Danny looked between his dad and the button. "You're really, REALLY weird. You know that, right?"

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. "Son, one day you'll understand that I do things for your own good. I'm going to entrust you with this button in the hopes that one glorious day you will assume your full responsibilities as an heir to that proud Fenton legacy of really really weirdness."

Danny faked a laugh. "Fine, Dad." He shoved the toy in his backpack. "See you!" He left him in the basement and motored over to Tucker's.

Tucker opened the door at his knock. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah!" Tucker ran back inside for a minute and came back with his own scooter. "Let's go." He set it up and let Danny lead the way. "How goes tutoring?"

Danny kicked his scooter into gear. "Not so bad, actually. Chris and Duncan gave me a lot of help."

Tucker looked over at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. I guess Lows asked them to come, but I bet they'd be looking over the shoulders of the calculus kids if they didn't have anyone to help."

"They're sure smart enough for calculus."

"I think I know what I'm going to do for the anniversary," Danny said.

"That's great! You found something?"

"Yeah." Danny sketched it out for him, nearly falling off his scooter several times in his excitement. "It'll be great!"

"Sure sounds like it."

They talked as they rode into the city. The light was beginning to fade, the white glow turning bronze with the approaching evening. They passed under the cold shadows of office buildings and through the angry, honking streets of commuters bogged down in rush hour. The laughter of the two friends echoed from the concrete walls, disturbing shadows that had slept through the blaring of car horns and the crunching of minor accidents. They passed on through the commercial and business sectors, threading their way through the traffic and returning the motorists' dirty looks with goofy faces. The traffic thinned out as they traveled farther. Warehouses and factories belched smog into the sky where office buildings had formerly towered. Danny didn't notice until his ghost sense went off. He pulled up to a full stop and Tucker followed suit.

"What?" Tucker asked.

"Look, Tucker."

Tucker looked around. "This a good spot?" He shrugged. "Okay. Let's get the thermos."

Danny gulped and shook his head. His voice wavered. "No Tuck. You're not _looking_."

"Don't be such a-" Tucker stopped. The shadows around them were moving.

Shreds of darkness pooled on the building sidings, in the darkness of dumpsters, sneaking and curling around the last fading piercing beams of the sun. The grey wisps danced in the darkness, staying just clear of the light.

A shiver ran up Danny's spine as he transformed. "Who's there?"

"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

Tucker clapped his hands over his ears as the plump blue-glowing menace hovered above them, armed with unbaked cartons of pie.

"I hate that one," Tucker grumbled.

Danny laughed the tension from his body. "I'm pretty glad to see him, myself."

"FEAR my unbaked rectangular fury, little humans! For I am the-"

"-boxed ghost," Danny finished, cuffing his ears.

"Owwww..." The ghost whined. It rubbed its ears and shook its head clear. The Box Ghost glanced up, its little pug-eyes a pale red, almost pink. "I am-"

"History!" Danny hit it again, knocking it up against the rusted siding of a warehouse.

Tucker was putting the thermos through little bored spins and flips. "Having fun?"

Danny turned to answer. "Actually, yeah."

The Box Ghost clocked him a good one with a nearby cinder block. Tucker gaped as Danny went flying across the road, barely phasing through the opposite building in time.

Tucker went to check on him as the Box Ghost cackled gleefully.

"Still having fun?"

Danny reemerged coughing. Puffs of dirt and dust drifted from him as he hovered in the air, the fabric at his shoulder ripped. "Ugh. This place is a dump. Let's wrap this up and go play video games or something."

"Suits me."

"Ha ha! You cannot defeat my special brand of prepackaged evil!"

Danny made a face. "I'd rather take another cement block than keep hearing that." He fired a beam of plasma at the ghost, and Tucker caught it neatly in the thermos.

"Really?" Tucker asked.

Danny shrugged. "No. Let's get out of here. This place is really weird tonight."

The two put away their ghost-hunting material and sped back the way they'd come. Behind them, the shadows continued to stir. The road watched them leave with cold eyes, waiting as the dying sun finally sank beneath the horizon in a blaze of fireworks that bled scarlet against the clouds. Elsewhere a playful zephyr rustled along the streets, toying with scraps of paper and bottle caps, but it died away long before it reached the darkening road. Not a breath of wind rustled the dirt. No rats skittered along the buildings, and only a few small bags of refuse lay couched in the rusting dumpsters. The air lay still and dead over everything, and in a dark corner a wispy shade took form. It curled like a vapor, spinning and curling across the road to dawdle at the scooter marks. It danced in the rising darkness, and others crept from the shadows to join in.

---

A/N: Whoo-wah! Less than two weeks (barely)! The following people are thanked: smile7499, Wiggle Lizard(who saddens with with her giving up, but I wish her luck), Sakura Scout, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, and Creator Chaos. Your reviews make me smile. You did read the new summary correctly, by the way. This IS an 'apocalypse fic.' Pfft. You guys think Alex is bad news? You ain't seen nothin' yet. ;)


	6. As the Bough Breaks

Sing to Life

Chapter 6: As the Bough Breaks

Wake up.

Wake up Alex we have something to show you.

Alex felt himself flowing back to reality, carried along by an inexplicable, inexorable river in an unbounded void. He moaned as memories started drifting back to him. He recalled that Skulker and Vlad had done something to him. But what had they done? Whatever it was had made him bone-weary. He wanted to go back to sleep until it was all over. Then he'd wake up, ruin a few lives, and be right back to normal. On second thought, something about that solution didn't sound feasible. People had been telling him things, and some unusual things had been done with him. Alex felt like a blind man for them, grasping down into the waters. The things were lurking just within reach...

In his mind Alex shrieked and swam furiously against the current, but it only picked up and carried him faster. He hit violent rapids, the water slamming him against the terrible rocky memories of his dealings with Walker and Danny and Jazz, and those evil things that they had all told him.

They were wrong about him. They had to be. He was something special, the one unique artifact out of all ghosts or humans. He had lived for fifty years without age or injury and his passenger was far older than that. Together they might topple civilizations. He was no puppet, yet that was what everyone called him.

Alex's mind spun furiously, continuing at breakneck pace downriver. He caught a glimpse through his own eyes and screamed noiselessly. A green fluid surrounded him, the outside view distorted by the glass tube around him. He could see his new owners lounging against a desk, facing him and chatting over cups of steaming coffee. They didn't even look nervous. The view passed, leaving Alex feeling sickened and suffocated.

Were they right?

Was he nothing more than a simple marionette?

No...

Alex felt himself flung into space, thrown clear of the river and left suspended over a waterfall, stilled in time and space. He could have counted the billions of droplets that sparkled below him, the spray that like him had been ejected from the main stream. The powerful torrent was captured in its descent like an image in a painting, forever frozen, forever in motion. It stretched away into the darkness, resolving at last into a point far below that tickled the limit of infinity. Alex hung in that space and looked down at that fall, and he wondered:

_Am_ I a puppet?

The void yanked him down, the spray of the water hitting his body and stinging like pin-pricks, the descent knocking the wind from his chest and tearing him into the emptiness. He gasped for air that he knew didn't exist, wishing for the unconsciousness that he knew would not come.

We're out, Alex.

Alex tried to move, tried to maneuver himself to face his Other, but he couldn't. He could only fall.

How is that possible? How am I conscious? I'm never conscious when you're out.

The blackness around him flickered purple for a moment. Alex got the impression it was laughing at him.

We shut you down when we emerge. We can revitalize you anytime we wish.

What! How is that... What day is it? How long?

Three days.

Alex swore. He kicked and howled and hit nothing but cool droplets of water.

They can't do this to me. How can you let them do this to me. We're a team. I'm never out for that long.

There was that purple flux again.

They have a compound now, made of- How should we put it? Ground-up heroism. Powders from the bones of great leaders, plasma from great ghosts, the sweat and tears of endurance through tragedy. Any kind of courage is anathema to us. You know this.

Alex clenched his fists and tried to stand erect in his fall.

But I was never meant to be manipulated.

That is true. Let us show you something.

Everything blinked out. The darkness and the waterfall flashed away and were succeeded by a dirty road bordered by aging warehouses.

---

"Look, Vlad." Skulker pointed at the tank. "He's doing something!"

"Really?" Vlad abandoned a net he'd been adjusting on a workbench and leaned against the lab table, scrutinizing the black clouds that passed for Alex. They swirled in the tank like a hurricane, keeping up that same furious motion Vlad had been seeing since Monday. Somewhere in there was a skinny college kid with no self-control. Alex was pathetically easy to manage. They'd wired him to an instrument cluster that sat just over the tank, a mass of pipes and cables that clicked and hummed. It fed the data to a computer bank against a wall, and the information was recorded both digitally and on stacks of papers that spooled from the printers to land in a messy pile on the tile. Vlad snatched the latest printout and looked it over. It didn't look any different from the others, and he was beginning to tire of this jargon-packed garbage.

At least it would be worth it if Alex paid off. If Alex's powers could be channeled through a mechanical device, Vlad was fairly certain that the Packers would be the least of the things he could lay hands on.

Vlad crumpled the paper and threw it away. He wouldn't put up with such indecisive delay for anything _but_ a super weapon. "According to this trash he's just sitting there, being extremely pissed off." Vlad leaned back against a table. "Just like the last eighty hours we've been watching him. What do you think you saw?"

"The black is moving faster." Skulker pointed to the tank. "Do you see?"

Vlad looked at it. The stuff did look like it was moving a little more quickly today. "So what? What's that mean?"

"I don't know. But I'm sure it would be a very bad idea to ignore it." Skulker bent down and began rearranging the connections that ran between the instruments and the computer bank.

Vlad continued to watch the tank as its darkness swam. He took a gulp of coffee. Stupid high-maintenance lab-rat...

Vlad chocked on his coffee as the dark swept away entirely, dissipated in an instant and leaving the tank glowing lime green. Alex drifted there, clothing and scum-tinted hair waving in the iridescent plasma. Vlad stumbled back as Alex's eyes snapped open, those cold, amber eyes staring straight into his own. Alex's wide amber eyes, untainted by darkness, whites stained green with plasma and mouth just starting to open in a scream that never came.

Vlad's jaw worked. "Skulker!"

Skulker turned, holding a paper. "Did something happen? These readings are jumping around a lot."

Vlad motioned to the tank. It had gone dark and opaque once again. "His eyes... Opened. And the black cleared off."

Skulker sniffed. "Strange. The darkness shouldn't lift unless he regains consciousness. I'll patch into his subconscious and maybe we can see what he's thinking."

Vlad glanced at Skulker. "Can we _do_ that?"

"Sure." Skulker sighed and shook his head at him. "You humans. You think so small. Ghosts are much more... transparent. We have no tissues to damage, and many ghosts don't even need technology to read minds."

Vlad cleared his throat. "Right. I knew that."

"I'm sure." Skulker rearranged several wires behind the machines and checked a monitor in front. Nothing came up. He ducked back and fiddled with them until a snowy blur flashed on-screen and began resolving itself into an image of an azure streak couched in blackness. The streak threw off little specks of itself, which traveled along with it. The perspective shifted erratically, filmed through an unstable camera.

Vlad gestured to it. "We're recording this?"

Skulker smiled. "Of course."

---

Alex saw that there was something wrong with the road. The middle of it had dark pools, dark, moving, creeping pools. A lump jumped up in his throat as he recognized the effluvia of his eyes.

How...?

Ssh. Watch.

The shadows curled and danced, little threads of darkness that curled and twisted, made grey and smoky by the dim starlight. They joined in a widening puddle and soon filled the road in a pond of blackness. Alex looked closer and saw that they were streaming from the inside of the warehouses.

Watch, our vessel.

Alex watched.

The shadows pooled on the dead road, thickening and rising as the night crept on. The view swept under the rusting sheet-metal of one warehouse, following one of the streams up into it. Alex choked and stuttered, not believing what he saw. Then he looked closer, and a grin blossomed across his face. The shadows poured like blood from the limp, stacked bodies of animals and humans. A few ghosts even lay piled in among them. Rats lay dormant next to raccoons and children, while women and gruff, muscled men lay prostrate among them. The bodies were alive, but they breathed only every minute or so in quick, gasping breaths. The shadows washed over them on their journey to the road. They seeped from the piles, from the bodies. They crept and clawed from their souls, thin dark strips of nothing that flowed from their wide-open eyes, those eyes that were slicked black and glittering in the light of the stars.

Alex laughed at them.

I know them! They're my children. I stowed them here

The blackness nodded at him.

They are ours. We can remake the world in their image.

How? I'm trapped.

Alex listened for an answer in futility. He felt the world swimming away from him, the waterfall came back, and the flat ground of unconsciousness rushed up at him.

Alex screamed.

Listen to me! Tell me what to do! I'm trapped and tired. Don't send me-

And then there was nothing.

Skulker and Vlad stood up from the blank screen. Neither of them said anything for a moment. They glanced back at Alex and the darkness in his tank that enshrouded him, watching the chaotic currents toy with the inky clouds, swirling and stirring them.

Skulker leaned back against the table and sighed. "You realize this means he's not contained."

Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut in pressured contemplation. "Yes." He looked up at Skulker. "We have to find that alley."

Vlad left the room at a fast walk with Skulker right behind him. The lab hung empty, the only sound the whooshing of plasma flowing through the pumps and the thump of receding footsteps. When the steps finally died away, the darkness in the tank shifted and flickered purple.

---

A/N: Here's the deal: Everybody reading this is a ninny except Sakura Scout. ONE review for Chapter 5? ONE review?! Come on! What's that about? Sigh. Well, in the spirit of the cheap sensationalism you all know I cherish, I'll offer a bribe. Fifth reviewer gets a minor cameo in 'The Fan Zone' (another fic of mine that's gotten 40 reviews in 3 chapters) and the tenth reviewer gets a cameo PLUS a plug for one of their stories in 'The Fan Zone' and the end A/N of "Sing" Chapter 7. (If you're worried about what this will do to "TFZ," don't. Anybody who has read it knows that I could fly in friggen' Santa Claus and venison from Rudolph and Bambi's mother 'without affecting the quality of the work.') Please don't just say "hello give me a cameo" in your review. Only reviews with actual comments count for the prizes!


	7. Stars in Our Eyes

A/N: Shame on me. Sorry about last chap's A/N, folks. I won't let my insecurities get in the way of this again. That said, enjoy this 'little' reprieve while I go edit Chapter 8.

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 7:Stars in Our Eyes

Sam fished out the last of the weekend's homework necessities, a couple binders and a huge textbook, then slammed the locker door shut and turned to face the seething masses. No, on second thought it wasn't the masses she was worried about. It was Danny. Sam took a tentative step forward and allowed herself to be sucked into the general torrent of kids scrambling for the exit, the double-doors already packed to capacity. She felt the soft light of the sun and a breath of fresh air and moved out of the stream, moving away from the doors and their outpouring. She looked down at her books again. What had Danny planned? Did he know any more about anniversaries than she did? Sam didn't think so. But still, how was she supposed to act? The whole discussion might be moot anyway, since there was a chance that Danny had forgotten.

Sam clasped her books to her chest as somebody bumped her elbow. She edged farther from the doors and stood on the concrete steps, and, after sweeping a hand through her hair and straightening her skirt, raised her head to look over the schoolyard. She searched the grounds, peeling away layers of kids, foliage, and automobiles. Had he remembered? She'd mentioned it to Tucker often enough that he, if nothing else, should have reminded Danny. Sam raised her hand against the bright sky. She squinted at the sight of it, but after a closer look at the particular kind of brightness it possessed, she moved her hand away and smiled.

It was exactly the kind of weather she loved. A loose-knit blanket of puffy silver clouds coated the sky, soaking up the piercing sunlight and returning it to earth as a bright haze. The light diffused across the schoolyard, lighting everything it touched with sharp, vivid colors. It was always joined by a sharp chill in the air, and the cold and the brightness gave everything a stark clarity. Free from the warm, cheerful bias of direct sunlight but bereft of the angry darkness of a storm, it was a special kind of weather than exuded confident realism.

It looked as though God, in His own way, had arranged this for her. Sam looked over the schoolyard and shifted her weight. Maybe she would enjoy this anniversary thing after all.

"Hey Sam!"

She looked over to see Danny waving to her from some yard down the concrete path, wading through the diminishing trickle of escaping students to meet her. Sam returned the wave and stood waiting for him. She wondered how she looked, if she was presentable enough to be deemed 'anniversary-ready.' She glanced back to him, and a grin tugged at her lips as she watched him approach. He looked so cute.

Danny walked with a charming insecurity, taking unmeasured steps and holding his hands raised to his waist and a little forward. There was a nearly imperceptible upward slant of his shoulders and a quiet uncertainty in his movement. Not paranoia, but a certain degree of hypersensitivity that Sam found fantastically reassuring. Though Danny's motions were unbalanced, his eyes were bright and shining in the cloudlight, but then everything shone under the white lighting. Sam took a slow breath. Danny wasn't the only nervous one.

Danny reached her, coming to a cautious stop a foot or two away from her. He fidgeted and cleared his throat. "So... Happy anniversary."

Sam nodded. "Happy anniversary." He really was cute, standing there totally oblivious as to what he should do. Not that she had any ideas of her own.

His eyes darted over her and he jumped forward as he noticed her workload. "Need some help?"

"Thank you." She smiled and held it out for him. Their hands brushed over the heavy texts, and Danny lingered for a moment over hers. Both of them blushed, and Sam let him take them from her.

Danny cleared his throat again, holding the books at his side. "Um, what do you want to do?"

Sam didn't know. She hardly knew what the allegedly 'normal' teens did on anniversaries much less what would be comfortable for her and Danny to do. Television was no help for guidance on this, but she had better say something because things were rapidly becoming awkward. She didn't mind awkwardness around other kids; she was used to it, but with Danny it was unbearable.

"Kiss her!"

Sam grimaced and spun around. "What?"

"Tucker!" Danny grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I told you-"

Tucker peaked out from the shrubbery to face Danny's angry glare and Sam's bemused relief. "What? I was just trying to help! I mean look at you two." Tucker stood from the bushes, brushing himself off. "You're treating her with kit gloves and Sam's just being... Sam." He shook his head. Sam blushed and glanced over at Danny.

Danny rubbed his temples. "Tucker..."

Sam took his arm and squeezed it.

"No, seriously," Tucker continued. "You guys are just not getting the whole 'you're-a-couple-so-it's-okay-to-kiss-in-public' thing. Do I have to get out those stupid plastic dummies from health? You goin' to make me put a condom on a banana?" Tucker threw up his hands and heaved a sigh. "Somebody's got to clue the two of you in. It's your anniversary for cryin' out loud."

Sam crossed her arms, forcing her mouth into a line. "Tucker, that is the crudest, rudest piece of advice I have ever, ever..." She broke down into giggles. "I remember that banana thing."

Danny shifted his hands. "That's very very, not... good." He too remembered the infamous banana demonstration. "But we really don't need your help. I mean, not every couple is Paullina and Dash. If Sam isn't comfortable-" Danny was worked up, but Sam didn't fail to notice his hesitation over that last phrase.

She liked her lips. Time to be brave.

Sam snaked her arms around his shoulders and caught his lips in mid-sentence. Danny made a small "mmph!" noise as Sam touched her lips to his, waiting for him to catch on.

The kiss started out forced, something she had done on impulse more than affection, but the purpose became irrelevant in the process of the act as the surprise and compulsion turned to an exceedingly comfortable mutual enjoyment. She pressed her lips to his, feeling his hands rise to her shoulders and his lips move and respond to her own caresses, and Sam let it go on for a second or two before letting him go. Danny leaned back a little and shook his head. "Whoa. So I guess you're, um, comfortable?"

Sam grinned up at him and smiled, pulling his head to hers once more. "I guess I am."

She closed her eyes and lifted her head to Danny again, feeling his lips pressing against hers, feeling a twinge of fire in her blood as his arms moved around her and gently pulled her closer. Her head was spinning; anyone could see them, but for once she couldn't care less. Danny was here with his arms around her, his lips and gently touching and tugging, accepting and wanting her. Sam opened her mouth a bit more, pressing closer to him and feeling the muscles of his abdomen tense as she ran the tips of her fingers down his side. She dimly remembered that they really were still in school, with Tucker somewhere nearby.

She pulled away and put a finger to his lips. "Not so much…"

Danny looked at her, eyes wide. "Um, whoa. Wow."

Sam laughed and shoved him lightly. "Don't be so melodramatic."

"_I'm_ being melodramatic?"

Tucker coughed. "You know, I could just leave if you guys don't want... You know, I could just leave."

"No, it's alright if you stay," Danny told him.

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's fine." Sam didn't care one way or the other so long as Danny was there.

Tucker glanced between the two of them. They looked more through him than at him. "You know what? I think I will just head home. Or maybe I'll visit Joseph. Whatever. I'll let you both alone."

Sam shook her head. "No, it's alright, really. We'll go play tag with that stupid box ghost or something. Really. We won't, um… kiss, again."

Danny started, jolted from his quiet reverie. "We won't?"

"Well, not while he's around…"

Tucker sighed and started backing away. "I'll see you guys tomorrow or something. Happy anniversary."

They watched him walk to the school's bike rack and unchain his scooter, giving them both a final wave before speeding away.

Sam looked up at Danny, hugging his arm. "You know, I don't really think I wanted him to join us."

Danny turned to her with a smirk. "Me neither. Not that Tuck's not a great guy and all, I mean he is my best friend, it's just..." He reached up and brushed back her hair. "This is..."

"It is. It really is." Sam gave him a peck on the cheek and, with a skip and a grin, pulled him down the steps after her. Danny tossed her books away in his backpack, concealed his backpack in some bushes, and hurried to catch her.

"Where would you like to go?"

Sam laughed. "I don't know. Does it matter?"

Danny smiled. "Good point."

Chatting and laughing, they sauntered off down the sidewalk, ambling and stumbling in the general direction of the bus stop. She gossiped with Danny about school and teachers, about the allegedly popular crowd and the probable source of the lunch food, and Sam was reminded again of how lucky she was to have him. She nudged closer to him and talked, relishing his closeness and the sense that, for the moment, they could just take five from the ghost business and the school business and just enjoy one another. Other people passed them on their way to the bus stop, some looking not nearly as content. Kids and their screaming children. Hassled single women. An older couple passed them, a man and his wife from the looks of it, and Sam sobered as she watched them. Danny asked her if anything was alright.

Sam looked after the couple. The man carried himself amiably, well-dressed in a coat and boots, but the woman was old and tired. She scowled and walked with a hunch, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk. Sam shuddered. She didn't think that she and Danny would ever end up that way, and as dismal and frightening as the prospect was, that wasn't what worried her. The man and the woman, they reminded her of someone. Something? She couldn't put her finger on it, but it made her feel cold. Cold and weary.

Danny was talking to her again.

"Oh, I'm alright. It's nothing…" She smiled at him, but her eyes trailed after the couple.

Danny put his arm around her. "Not in a million years." He rested his arm across her shoulders and turned her forward, sparing a backward glance. "Nuh-uh." He smiled and kissed her forehead.

Sam leaned against him and let the deja vu slip away. It was impossible to hold a dark thought on a day like this, and the incident dropped away easily. Danny poked fun at the imagined occupations of passers' by, chatter of the squirrel living in an old oak tree, and the sour mug of a poofy Persian that sauntered along a wooden fence. They reached the bus stop, and, noting that the stop led to a number of interesting places and was equipped with a bench, Danny and Sam elected to grace the humble wooden fixture with their presence while looking at the posted metal placard bearing the various buses and their future stops.

"I think this one goes by the mall," Sam mused. She turned to Danny. "What do you think? Joseph works at that Japanese place, and Tucker's probably hanging around. Do you want to surprise our friends?"

"Oh boy, we'll probably catch it from the popular crowd if we do." Danny sighed. "On our anniversary? You up for that?"

"I am if you are." She touched her head to his shoulder.

Danny turned to get a better view of her. Not a trace of cynicism in the glow of her cheeks or the curve of her lip, only genuine trusting happiness. "I've never seen you like this."

"Like what?"

Danny stuttered, conscious of the eavesdroppers waiting around them. The groaning bus rounded the corner a couple blocks away. "I'll tell you in a minute."

The bus lurched to a stop and soon the two were safely stowed in the back, voices muted to others by the rumbling engine. "Like what?" she asked again.

"Well, happy, I guess." Danny paused, wondered how delicately to tread. "When I first met you you were... less enthusiastic."

Sam sat back in her seat and put her hands on her knees, facing him. She didn't look angry, just serious. "I hadn't met you yet."

Danny rubbed his neck. "Well, yeah, I guess, but it seems like it would take more than just me to... change you like this."

She peered over at him, eyes half-lidded. "Do you really want to know?"

"It would be nice," Danny confessed. Why had he even brought it up? He didn't want to put a damper on the day.

"Remember Alex?"

He nodded, brow furrowing. "What about him?"

"I don't know. It's hard to explain." Her eyes drifted to the bus windows, watching the shops file by. "It brought up a lot of things for me. It's true what I told you that time on the phone." Danny leaned closer. He remembered that conversation, and it was one of the many reasons he truly hated Alex.

Sam's eyes shifted over the windows. "I did have some... problems before I met you." She sighed and frowned at the bus floor. Danny took one of her hands in his own. "I don't know. It's embarrassing. I still had problems after I started hanging around with you and Tucker. Depression, you know. The same old teen angst story; friends, parents, whatever. Everybody knows it. But meeting someone, some_thing_, like Alex, it really changes how you think about that." She met his eyes, letting her earnestness shine through them. "It makes things clearer."

Danny shook his head. "If you say so, Sam." She sighed and looked back out the windows. Danny was on the verge of another question when, with a shudder and some whiplash, the bus pulled up at the mall.

Sam stood and pushed through the doors. "Never mind it now." She smiled. "Let's go check out the latest obsessions of consumerism." They crossed the expansive parking lot, seeing mothers and their hyper children struggling into minivans while slobs moseyed to and from the mall with glazed eyes. Sam knew for sure it was a mistake the minute they passed through the doors. The noise was awful, the air was stale, and the shop windows declared their goods like world leaders declaring war.

Sam sniffed the processed air and coughed. "What now?"

Danny straightened and patted her arm. "Courage, milady." He treated her to a saucy grin. "As your guardian ghost-hybrid, I shall provide you safe passage."

Sam laughed. "Come off your high horse, King Arthur, and let's take a look." They wandered around the mall for a while, winding through the impatient crowds to a few select outlets. Danny followed Sam through the goth store, and Sam let Danny drag her through the video game stores. Neither spent much time in either place. Too commercial, they thought. Too public. Why don't we leave?

By mutual agreement, they stopped for salad and pizza on the way out. Sam assumed it would be pizza, at any rate, but she was pleasantly surprised to see Danny return with a salad. She was charmed until she realized it was a taco salad, but it was nice of him to consider her.

It was getting on in the day and more people were crowding in, filling all the tables and forcing the two to sit on the outskirts of the cafeteria, near the mall walkway. They continued to talk as they ate, but in mid-bite Danny's eyes gravitated to some point behind Sam.

"What is it?" She turned for a better look.

Danny grinned. "Are you going to eat those croutons?" Sam had a stack of them piled on a corner of her tray.

"No. Too salty. Why do you ask?"

He grabbed them off the tray and ran to hide behind a table, just out of sight of the mall walkway. As Sam turned to watch, the fabulous four of Dash, Kwan, Paullina, and Valerie walked into view, the girls gossiping and tossing their heads while the jocks postured and chuckled in a deep, self-consciously macho way. Danny grinned to Sam as the group walked right by his hiding place, showing her a single crouton pinched between thumb and forefinger. Sam waved no at him, guessing that there was probably a line between giddiness and sheer stupidity that he was about to cross with a flying leap. Danny frowned at her warnings and stuck nose in the air, eyes half-closed, brow furrowed and mouth attempting a frown, though he was so close to laughing that the last wavered wildly. In Sam's eyes, the attempt at the 'noble warrior' look was more akin to that of the retarded martyr. Danny crouched down , and, careful to remain out of sight of the other patrons, smacked Dash in the back of the head with a crouton.

Dash yelled and spun around while Danny ducked behind his table. "Alright, who threw that?" The other three turned with him, each one searching the mall with Dash after learning the trouble. Many other kids from school had been dining at the court, and Dash's booming voice brought their heads up sharply, as eager as Dash himself to identify the criminal. A few spotted Danny and exchanged thumbs-ups. Of those who saw Danny, a few noticed that Sam was seated nearby at a table with two nearly finished meals on it. They put the two together and sat back to watch.

Sam rose to creep toward Danny, blending in with the clueless adults and younger kids. The enemy turned their heads, Paullina's slanted eyes on the verge of discovering her, when another spatter of something hit Kwan from the opposite direction. They squabbled and glanced everywhere lightly but nowhere thoroughly, and Sam darted by and scooted next to Danny.

"Don't you think this is a tiny bit juvenile?" she asked.

He laughed, eyes dancing. "Yes." Sam shook her head at him. "Do you want me to stop?"

She looked at his wide grin and rolled her eyes. "Give me one of those." She grabbed one from his hand, and after a moment's hesitation, flung the crouton to land undetected in Paullina's hair.

Danny stared at her for a minute, amazement replacing excitement. "Sam, you just..."

She shrugged. "It is our anniversary."

"Right." Danny nodded, and the grin bloomed again. "Right." Danny peeked over the table.

The four were antsy now. The girls wanted retribution, and the guys, Dash more than Kwan, were eager for a justifiable reason to use somebody as a punching bag. Danny reached over the table and chucked three more croutons.

One fell flat on the floor. Another landed on Valerie's shirt, where it stuck like an obstinate booger, and the last hit Dash in the forehead. Dash's eyes boggled and Danny leaped up as they made eye contact. Dash roared and charged toward him.

Danny grabbed Sam's hand and started running. "Time to go!"

"Ya think?"

They retreated to the loud whoops and cheers of their dining audience. Danny wished he had the time to manage a bow.

Dash's feet pounded up behind them, and Sam was beginning to get truly nervous when, to her relief, Paullina recalled her juggernaut with a sharp screech. "I have, I have STUFF on me!"

"Huh?" Dash halted in his tracks and turned to her, and Danny and Sam risked a glance back. The teenage goddess was covered in something gelatinous and gooey. It stuck to her hair and dribbled in chunks down her pink sweater.

They stared, mouths agape, when Tucker waved to them from the sushi bar. Joseph stood next to him, raising an enormous ladle triumphantly. Tucker waved for them to go as Joseph roared with laughter.

Sam chuckled at Paullina and Danny returned the wave, shouting his gratitude, before pulling them both away before Dash had time to turn around. They ran down the walkway, hearing Dash yell as he resumed his charge, and Sam felt another burst of adrenaline sweep through her. It was almost pleasant in a death-defying kind of way. Danny pulled her into a bathroom corridor, racing to the deserted recess and turning them both invisible as Dash turned in after them. He scanned the corridor, ran down its length with an angry frown, and moved on.

They both rematerialized. Sam heaved a sigh. "Well. That was certainly..."

"Exciting? Long-overdue?" Danny took her in his arms. "Fun?"

"The least sensible thing I've ever done." Sam returned his embrace, and they shared a brief kiss.

"I've had enough of the mall," she said, glancing over her shoulder to the walkway beyond.

"Me too. How about a movie?" Sam's hair was a little disheveled from running. He brushed it with his fingers, feeling the smooth strands order themselves under his touch.

"Alright, but I don't want to sit in front." She kissed his cheek, her lips lingering.

Danny nodded enthusiastically. "I can live with that."

Sam laughed. "Don't get THAT excited. I'm still not sure what I think about this whole romance thing."

Danny caught her lips again, taking her face in his rough, confident hands. "Sure you're not," he murmured. Sam felt the hot, slow caresses of those lips on hers and thought that he might be right.

"I just don't want this to get too far."

Danny pulled away from her. "Sam, I love you, and I'm pretty sure you like me quite a lot." He brushed away her hair. "At some point you might want to trust me."

Sam quirked her head and searched his eyes. "I do love you. I do trust you. This is just kind of a new experience for me."

"That's alright, but I'd never do anything that would hurt you." Danny touched her nose. "I took you from the devil once already and I'm not giving you back."

Was it any wonder that she loved him? If anything, Sam wondered that he would bother with her.

Danny looked back over his shoulder. "I don't mean to rush, but I think we might want to move because it sounds like Dash and company are headed back this way." Sam perked up her ears. Indeed, through the typical background static of the mall came a set of hurried footsteps.

Danny grasped her hand. "Don't let go." Sam's throat tightened as the two of them went intangible, phasing through the concrete and iron entrails of the mall to emerge in the open air of the parking lot. They started again for the bus stop, Sam shivering a little in the crisp air. She tugged at his arm and he enclosed her in his warm arms as they crossed to the bus stop.

The bus didn't take too long. Some other shoppers stood around the sign post, rubbing their hands and stamping their feet while Danny and Sam huddled together on the bench. Danny wasn't sure that he was unhappy without a coat. Sam's body leaning against him was an amazing sensation, all the more so because it wasn't something as obvious as a kiss. She depended on him for something and felt comfortable being close to him, trusting him. A pride stirred in his chest. This was something more than virtue. It was more than fighting ghosts for the interests of an abstract good, and it was more than all the external responsibility and even occasional approval thrust on him by the rare grateful rescuee. This, his arms around Sam's shoulders, hers around his waist, his chin on her head and her head on his chest, this was something that felt better for him than all that hero work and its intangible rewards.

"You're going to make me quit my job," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." The hero work was difficult. No recognition and no credit, but it meant something to his rescuees, and he had to admit, moments like this more than made up for it.

The bus wandered up the avenue and creaked to a stop in front of them. They both got on, almost resentful of the interior heating. Danny touched her hand. "What movie do you want to see?"

Sam looked up. "What?" Danny repeated his question. "I don't know. Something lame, but no gore-fests."

"Yeah, I'm not up for gore-fests either." She was beautiful. The neon lights shone through the pitch-black night and the bus windows to play across her soft hair.

"So what do you want to see?"

Sam blinked. I want to see you. "Whatever, I guess."

Danny scootched closer to her on the bus seat and took her hand again. He sat thoughtfully for a minute; Sam only stared out the window. Danny exerted a gentle pressure with his thumb on the back of her hand, massaging it in slow circles across her skin. Sam turned to him and looked down. The motion made her blush, but she didn't pull away her hand. She snuggled closer to him, and Danny put a hand across her shoulders.

The bus pulled up at the movie theater, where most of the passengers stumbled out. Danny and Sam tumbled out with the rest and saw each other's breaths in wispy puffs, the twilight having given way to dark night. Danny cracked a joke about a nearby ghost, but Sam shook her head. "No way. Our anniversary, don't even think about it."

He smiled. "Whatever you say."

Sam glanced up at the box office. "Let's see. We've got 'Happy Hour of the Living Dead' and 'Evil Killer Zombie Goldfish IX.'" She crossed her arms. "Hm."

Danny looked into the theater. It looked happy enough in there. The smell of salt and popcorn wafted out to tempt them, and the arcade's thundering explosions sounded appealing. People swarmed in the theater, hurrying and dashing from the bathrooms to the concessions stand to their movie, and while most of them were having fun it seemed too loud, still too much like the mall.

"Too many people." Sam muttered.

"My thoughts exactly." Danny put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head to look at the sky. He couldn't see any stars, and the night had certainly progressed far enough already. The day had gone by so fast. The theater clock said it was already eight. Danny wondered if the cloud cover would be a problem. He didn't think so, but he should have tested this out beforehand. He had tested it a little, and he was sure nothing would go wrong, but still, more preparation would have been better.

He felt Sam touch his elbow. "Hey. See anybody up there?"

"You know," he mused. "We could skip the movie."

"And rent one?"

Danny shook his head. Sam tapped his arm again. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well." He looked down from the sky and shifted his feet. "I thought we could do something special our anniversary." He looked up at the sky again. "We could do it now, I suppose, if you'd like."

Sam glanced at the sky, following the dark shifts between grey and black where the clouds passed overhead. "Sure. But what is it?"

He took her hand and squeezed it. "Follow me."

Danny took off at a jog down the sidewalk, letting her run beside them, the two of them darting past storefronts and other nocturnal pedestrians as they made their way toward Amity Park. Through the iron gates they passed and over the uncertain ground they leaped until they were well into the park, out of sight of street and shop. Danny finally rested, and the two of them stopped to catch their breath.

Sam looked around. The shadows lay sprawled everywhere, the dim streetlights left far behind. "Danny? What is it? What did you want to show me?"

He looked up at the sky again and dug in his pocket, pulling out a short cord. He held it out to Sam.

She squinted in the dark. "What is this? Is that it?"

Danny laughed. "No. That's a rope."

Sam jerked her head up. "A rope?" She realized that she was alone with him in the park and started to wonder if 'Zombie Goldfish' would have been the better choice.

Danny caught her expression and waved his arms. "No no no, don't worry. It's um, to keep us together. I'll tie one end to my wrist and you tie the other to yours, and that way nothing will happen."

"We're going flying?"

Danny nodded. "Yeah."

Sam looked up. She loved it on the few occasions she had flown with him, but this was odd. Odd and strangely romantic, with the trees all around and the murky sky above, but there was something wild and young and strange in the night that stirred her heart with happiness and eager excitement. It made her jittery and nervous, and she squinted up at the clouds. "We're going flying up there?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Trust me."

She gave him a last questioning glance, though she doubted he could see it in the night, and secured the rope around her wrist. She felt a reciprocating tug as Danny did the same, and she blinked at the sudden bright flash as he went ghost. "Are you ready?" came his voice.

"Yes. I think so. But what exactly-" She fell silent as he took her hand, pressing lightly with his thumb, asking through that touch if she was ready. If she was comfortable. Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting the air inflate her cheeks and pass with a rush between her lips. She squeezed his hand and nodded.

They ascended slowly at first, straight up. Danny pulled her into the air, the two of them emerging from the shadows of the trees to rise like angels over the park and the city below. Sam could see the Cineplex and its visitors, the people clustering around the box offices. Elsewhere bundled, hooded figures hurried through the streets, passing by the jovial warmth of theater and eatery. The city faded away beneath them; she could distinguish the blocky office buildings, and the roads that ran between them were filled with toy cars colored with a dark, fading set of paints. She looked upward, and there was Danny flying a little above her, holding tight to her hand and holding his face to the dark and billowing clouds above. What had been a pleasant light-screen in the day had turned into a foreboding wall in the night, and Sam tasted fear as the ground fell away and that wall of clouds dipped down to meet them. She gripped Danny's hand harder.

He turned back to her and touched her shoulder, turning her to face him. "I've got you."

Sam gulped. "I know." He turned away to the sky once more, the two of them passing silently into the clouds.

There came a fresh shock of cold as they entered the giants. Water droplets ran down her hair, damped her clothes, and Sam's teeth chattered. She could barely see Danny, and the ground below had disappeared completely, replaced with murky darkness. They passed up and up, the air becoming colder and thinner, and Sam squeezed hard on Danny's hand. He turned and looked down at her, stopped and came to face her. Her teeth chattered, and a pained look crossed Danny's face. He rubbed her arms and hugged her, then grasped her hands and lit them with the dim glow of plasma. The warmth touched her palms and flowed through her body in gentle waves, the cold fading into cozy warmth. A curious mix of sensations followed swiftly upon one another, the lightness of intangibility, the disembodied feel of invisibility, and then she gasped and could breathe again. Danny caught her eyes, neither of them speaking in the silence of the cloud, and Sam nodded. They continued up. The clouds began to thin. She could see Danny almost clearly, the cloud no thicker than a heavy fog, and she caught her breath when she saw the glint of light on his suit, a white light, faint and cold and softened by the clouds. Only a few wisps of moisture lay ahead of them, then Danny pulled her through the ghostly wrappings and onto the surface of the universe.

The sky was a tapestry stitched of starlight. Millions of tiny points peeked from their cubby-holes to shine without blink or flicker on their two privileged guests. The earth below was a blanket of fog and tinted light, and the sky above was an infinite sheet of star-spangled blackness. Everywhere stars, stars above, stars all around, stars playing hide-and-seek in Danny's ivory hair. Stars dancing in his emerald eyes. Sam couldn't believe it was real. Everything so quiet, so perfect, so delicate in its own way. Each of those millions of lights in the sky knew its place and loved it, and there was no other witness to the miracle than the one she loved most.

The stars in Danny's eyes glittered. The corners of his mouth lifted in something more than a smile. He drew closer to her in something more than a casual approach. This sight was a treasure, his treasure by right of discovery, and he had chosen to show it to her. Sam's mind came in from its universal wanderings and settled itself comfortably in those proud, glowing eyes of his, proud of her and of the supremacy of his gift, and she saw that those green windows were waiting on her approval.

"Do you like it?"

Sam blinked away tears. Her voice cracked. "It's… beautiful."

He took her in his arms, more firmly, more insistently than before, clutching her shoulders moving her close against him. His mouth moved against hers, their lips closing and closing again one another, and Sam felt his gloved hand move under her head, the other rubbing slowly up her back. The warmth of his tongue touched her lips and she opened her lips for him, bringing her hands to his shoulders as their tongues intertwined. She lifted her head to him as she tasted him, as he tasted her, and as each reacted with quick breaths, each soul soaring in the perfection of the universe around them and each soul glorying in the loving vindication of the other through their touch, through their love.

Sam ran her hands down Danny's back, feeling the plates of his shoulder blades through the black suit, the athletic prominence of muscle and the eager motion of his ribcage as their breath rushed together. He had told her earlier to trust him; that he loved her. And she did trust him. Tears started to her eyes. Everything in the world was beautiful, and she trusted him.

---

A/N: Yes, this is a huge chapter, but I hope it was also an enjoyable one.I'm trying toimprove the quality of this story. By the way, the title for this is going to change, but I don't know to what yet. Last chap's reviewers are thanked mucho grande: Divagurl277, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, Sakura Scout (Chap. 8's got yer answers), smile7499 (love your specific comments!), Creator-Chaos, CHEENAMI danni, and Kybo.


	8. Empty the Hollow Man

Sing to Life

ByJadeRabbyt

Chapter 8: Empty the Hollow Man

The night watches with clear eyes as the kiss at last breaks, as the two pause quietly in the air before breaking out in laughter and whirling away into the sky, playing in its heights, flying among the stars and basking under the silver moonlight. They play like the children they are with the joy of the man and woman they are becoming, and the night blesses their youth, for the night and the stars, the earth and the air know a time will come when youth will be a fading memory, and hope a formless dream. Creation senses it, just as the motive shadows in every dark alley sense it, and the natural inanimates of the world show themselves all the more brilliantly because this time comes soon.

The two in the sky know nothing of this. They play in ignorance; the night sees it in their faces, two dreamers entertaining one another, taking pleasure in life without the transient accoutrements of fame or riches. As the night grows older the two dancers begin to tire, wearying happily with soft smiles and wide yawns. They drift from the heavens, passing through the cloudy nexus between heaven and earth, and the boy sets his girl delicately down on her own doorstep. He then flies to his own home, spinning a little in midair, rolling and laughing softly until he reaches his house and changes, puts on his human form and drifts off under his blanket, head laid quietly against soft pillows. The night tucks the two children away in their beds and perches over their headboards, a guardian not quite unbiased, and it waits until their eyes close, their breathing slows, and the little smiles remain still.

The night turns now to another.

Drive from the brick and stone facades of Amity Park, see the red taillights shining morbidly from private the cars bearing insomniatic travelers ever onward into the darkness. Join them and ride for hours, ride stolidly past the restless cities and glance carelessly at the sleeping farms. Take the Green Bay exit, ride it out and turn left here, a right there, leave the questing traffic and come to an old road that cuts through acres of dark, verdant fields. A mansion looms ahead, and one or two rooms are still lit. Peer through the windows and see what's in store for the whole of the world.

Skulker glanced out the windows, watching the lights winking from a few distant houses and a handful of cars. He walked past the rows of printers, monitors, and computer banks, lifting his hand against the window to cut down the glare. Creatures going healthily about their business, and healthy prey meant healthy hunters. It was a noble thing to compete against the worthier animals-take the ghost-child, for example-but watching was nice, too. Life, as it was, proceeding freely and naturally. A little more freely than before, since the creature in the basement was locked away.

Skulker bent to scan a status box on one of the computer monitors. One of the stasis fluids was too low again. Skulker didn't know why they kept fluctuating. Neither Alex himself nor his symbiote had done anything since last Wednesday, yet the tank's fluids were continually destabilizing. He moved to the printouts, perusing the latest readings for energy spikes in Alex, excessive ecto-neural activity, anything. But there was nothing, and the hunter smelled trouble. The alley he and Plasmius had recorded Wednesday might take another day or two to find, and he had no great faith in the effectiveness of an untested serum on an exotic animal, either. Skulker shook his head at the printouts and glanced over to Plasmius' empty station.

It controlled a number of minor things. Contaminant filtering, temperature control, plasma exchange rate. Skulker had tried to avoid putting any of the critical controls on it, but Plasmius had insisted on operating the serum dosage from his console alone, and thus began the predator's dance. Skulker had agreed to do it on the condition that any adjustments be mutually decided upon, and Plasmius had accepted those terms but requested that his station be locked with a password. Skulker had countered by secretly installing a key logger along with the password protection. Now, Skulker thought that it was about time he checked up on those serum levels.

A few key taps on his own machine, a minute or two of retrieval time, and a records of every key Plasmius had ever hit at his console popped up on Skulker's screen. Every logon session began with the same set of characters: m-a-d-d-y-0-4. The last time he had visited Fenton's wife.

Skulker grunted. "Could have guessed that one." He entered the password on Plasmius' console and stole a look at the dosage schedule, pointing a metal finger at one column after another as he scanned the data, a scowl darkening his face. As Skulker looked down the last rows, he printed them out and flew from the room.

Vlad yawned. "I told you never to wake me up."

"Sorry princess, but we have a problem."

"What are you talking about? I don't sleep often and when I do I want some privacy. Get out of here."

"Get up."

Vlad swatted the paper away and turned ghost, entertaining a pleasant vision of Skulker frying under rosy plasma beams. "You're pushing your luck." He followed Skulker into the hallway and shut his bedroom door. "What is this about?"

Skulker pointed to that irritating scrap of paper. "Explain this!"

"Like I haven't seen a million of those in the past week. Why don't you explain it."

"This is the dosage schedule. It's off. By a lot."

Vlad yawned. "So?"

"You can't leave it up this high. We don't know what it does-"

"Ha! You're the one who designed it. You should know." He reclined slightly in the air. Skulker was being paranoid. Their designs always worked right.

Skulker shook his head. "We know it controls him. We don't know how. We don't know the nature of Alex or his symbiote. That shady substance we recorded Wednesday could be running in every dark alley in the city, and for all we know it's taking orders from our ghost in the basement."

"Hardly likely." Vlad was annoyed and disappointed. He hadn't thought that Skulker was so anal.

"No?" Skulker fixed him with a look bordering on insubordination. "Take the dosage down or I'll quit, and I'll take all my technology with me."

Vlad's face twisted with disgust. "You're a coward."

"No! I'm-"

"You're a mechanical freak and it was a mistake to hire you. You're not quitting; you're fired, and the tech is rightfully mine by purchase."

Vlad lit his fists, and Skulker changed his tone fast. "Plasmius, listen for a moment more. I may be fired, but I am no coward. There's been some strange readings on my console as well."

"Go on."

"I have to keep adjusting the stabilizer fluids. I can't turn them up indefinitely. If you keep raising the dosage then I guarantee that Alex will break out." Skulker rested his hand on his belt. "How certain are you of your powers against the devil's handyman? It isn't worth the risk."

Vlad scowled. "Alright. I'll turn them down a bit."

Skulker breathed a sigh. "Thank you."

The two of them drifted through the house, not bothering with hallways, passing between the floors to the lower lab where a tank glowed black. They bickered again over the exact level, what was and was not safe, and Vlad insisted on changing his password, but eventually an agreement was reached and Vlad took the dosage down enough to satisfy Skulker.

The tank was the dumb and mute witness. As the controlling serum dissipated, the darkness shifted, and the creature inside jerked awake in the sewage of its own consciousness.

He spits out shit and battery acid, hacking and coughing. More of the same flows in, filling his nose and mouth with grainy muck. He flails for something solid to catch hold of, panics and tries to call for help, but his voice is drowned and his call drivels away in the darkness. The primitive convulsions subside as he grows used to the numbing sting and nauseous taste. Conscious thought returns, bringing with it the realization that the putrid ocean is only the twisted manifestation of his equally twisted mind. Currents of hate and anger and hopelessness and confusion sweep through him, but there is nothing in any of them that he can hold or comprehend.

There is a final part of himself that he has lost. Some vital heirloom from the past that has at last decayed, gone the way of every other original part of him. He doesn't care what it is and doesn't want to know. The lost relic belongs to a time that was not now, then, or soon. It was the last gem in an otherwise empty museum of personal history, the last poor stone in a crown of tarnished brass. Like a man who sends his son away to college, so he consigns this anonymous artifact to the distant past. Back then he may have had some virtue; at least he'd like to think that. He despises himself too much to ever want his past self to have anything to do with whatever he has become. He drifts in the depths as reason neutralizes the acidic sea. He isn't curious or desperate; now he only waits, for now there is nothing left to take, nothing more to dissolve.

And that's when the voice speaks. He feels its message more than hears it, the structured spires of language collapsing under the weight of its doom.

You are now ours. Everything you are or were belongs to us utterly and completely.

Now there is one more thing to be done. You and ourselves are part of a system, and of that system we have entered its final stages. There is one more step to take before we release you. You want to be released?

He struggles with his tongue. Speech requires an 'I,' a being with a concept of judgment and self, but he has none of those. He surprises himself when he actually gets the word out.

Yes.

"Plasmius, I'm reading activity in the tank. I'm hooking up the imager again."

"Go right on ahead. I want to see it too."

Speech becomes easier. Somewhere enough wheels are still turning that he can take advantage of whatever deal the devil is going to make with him.

More than anything I want to die. I should have died years ago, before I met you, in a horrible car crash or a convenient store shootout. I can do nothing now, I have no one now, and I AM no one now. I want oblivion. No heaven and no hell. I want to know nothing of myself as I am or was.

The monster around him grins.

We can give you that-if you'll do one last thing for us. Just rubber-stamp one more request, and we can let you go forever in exactly the way that you wish.

How? I'll do it.

Don't agree so quickly or it will mean nothing and, consequently, be rendered void. We propose the end of the world.

He had nothing to say to that, so his Other continues.

We know an entity, we ourselves are an agent of an entity, whose purpose is to obliterate universes. It is a program embedded in reality like gravity or electromagnetism. Unlike those forces, however, this program is dormant. It has to be activated by a nomadic counterpart, a mobile entity, which travels from world to world, universe to universe, destroying each one it visits. We ourselves exist to set up the gateway for this entity. Before the energy can be admitted into a universe, it must have the permission of one of its sentient residents. That is our function; to obtain that permission, and it is now your choice to give or withhold it.

So that is our proposition. Your open door in exchange for the oblivion that you seek, as well as vengeance against everyone who has hurt you, against the world that corrupted you. We offer this and something else: a last chance to matter. A final act, if you will, of your declaration of selfhood.

Vlad's mouth hung open. "Are you hearing this?"

Skulker wavered for a moment, then fisted his hands and strode forward. "We have to either kill it or knock it out." His mane flared and his fists opened and closed. "Preferably kill it."

"How do you propose to do that?" Vlad whirled to his console. "You're fired, Skulker. The dose is going as high as I can push it. Nothing is going to happen, you know," he muttered. "This whole thing is probably just a ploy to get us worked up." Vlad worked the controls with shaking fingers.

He's reasonably certain that his Other hasn't spoken so much in all the time they've been together. It's trying to convince him, he thinks, but he decides it doesn't matter who is trying to manipulate him now. His choice would be the same had it not explained at all. He opens his mouth, but the words stop in his throat. He chokes on some shard of curiosity that no amount of apathy can dislodge.

Before I do, he starts slowly, Can you tell me something? I don't want my past or my present, but can you tell me what I might have been had I never met you? Can you tell me if I ever had a chance at all?

He has some dim idea that this question is not quite as frivolous as it sounds, but his Other only laughs.

You gave that knowledge up. We gave you power over souls and spirits and you gave up your future and your Self. Now there is a new deal. Approve it if you can.

His curiosity withers and dies. There's nothing left.

I won't pretend value where I see none, and I won't pretend virtue when I have none. The world is meaningless to me. I am meaningless to me. Give me my oblivion and kill them all.

A trapdoor bangs open in his mind and spews forth all the talent he has lost through years of sadism and hate. Here is his intelligence, his organizing and scheduling and memorizing abilities. Here is his mathematical precision, his literary insight, his orational eloquence and his boundless ambition and ego. His future: all the potential that might have been used for something creative and good now flowing into the conniving hands of this thing in his head. _Se la vie_.

He discovers that his eyes are working again.

Through the green ectoplasm in his tank he sees two petty humanoids scurrying about their gadgets. He groans and shudders as the darkness begins to activate his resources, routing its own dark power into his mental circuits. The world would end. He would bring it to an end and tear to pieces every living thing in it, starting with the two morons who stand there gawking at him.

"The energy readings are jumping the scales! He's not even feeling the drugs. Can you contain him?" Skulker whirled to Vlad. "You're going to have to use your muscle. I can't hold him!"

Vlad didn't move. His eyes were fixed straight ahead at the clear green of the tank, where the wide brown eyes of hate incarnate stared right back. Alex was very much awake, and as they both watched, a tiny crack tinked into the glass and began to spider out, the green ectoplasm beginning to trickle in streams from the fracture.

Skulker had drawn every convenient weapon he had. His mane flamed wildly and he kept adjusting his stance, keeping everything aimed at the beast in the tank.

Vlad could only stare, captivated by the demon's eyes. A shard of glass flew from the tank as it exploded, skewering his ghostly body and lodging itself in the wall behind him.

The glass and fluids destroyed most of the lab equipment. The computers sparked and fried, and one of the ghosts disappeared while the other leaped at him with knives and nets.

How typical.

He brought his right hand up and froze both figures. They looked funny like that, not moving, yet still possessed of that curious motion contained in every living thing. The catty one had been caught in mid-pounce, teeth bared, knives and guns extended, and the vampiric thing, stripped of its invisibility, stood open-mouthed. He hadn't even needed to bring out the darkness to stop them. The darkness was busy elsewhere in any case, marshalling the resources for a task worthy of his ability. It couldn't be bothered with these two jokers, but he sure could.

"Do you know what Nothing looks like?" He quirked his head at the captive audience. He knew they could hear him. "I'm not talking about your standard nothing. No money, no groceries, no toys, that kind of thing. I'm talking about absolute Nothing. The Void, if you will." Neither one replied. He dropped his hand and released them. The vampire let out a strangled yell and tried to fly away, but it slammed into a hastily erected psychokinetic force-field.

"Do you?"

The cat answered, but it was distracted. It could see that there was a cage around it, and the stupid thing was probably looking for a way out. "No."

The vampire shook its head. "Not exactly."

He didn't like the vampire, but that didn't matter because he could feel that his mind was almost completely rewired. It wouldn't be long at all now.

"I couldn't explain it to you, because I can't remember enough of this world to draw a good analogy, and even if I did, it looks like the two of you would be too stupid to understand it anyway. I suppose I could give it a shot, though." It was an easy thing to melt the metal from the computers into barbed wire, but it was a little more difficult to modify it for ghost-effectiveness. Nevertheless, he managed it all in the space of several seconds and had it wrapped loosely around the two of them in another half-second. "Pay attention. It feels a little like this." He squeezed the wire as tightly as he could without slicing them both in half.

"Why are you doing this?" gasped the cat.

"I'm doing this because there is meaning in nothing. There is life in death, and there is satisfaction in pain." He winced as the final lock turned in his head, the final circuit complete.

"I am destroying your world."

He let himself sink away as a conflagration roared up in his eyes and swept across his mind, liquefying the scrap into dross and leaving the new machinery free to run, the necessary parts free to shift and turn. The entire assembly stretched from his mind to touch a space beyond the four dimensions of space and time, prying between and beneath them to a space beyond the fourth. It took a titanic effort of intelligence, thousands of adjustments every picosecond to orchestrate the effort. The doomsday machine, with his Other at the controls, drained every resource, every talent, every insignificant ability he had ever owned and slammed them all into service with its own power against the thick weave of space-time. The weave groaned like death, it cracked like a spine, and it split open upon the world with the force of a hydrogen bomb and the heat of a blazing sun. Dimly he heard the two little beings he'd been holding shriek and turn to ash, and the ash burned away into atoms. Everything simmered white-hot and the rift, still lodged in his mind, projected into the real world, settling a couple yards away from him as a whirling vortex of shattered space. That old familiar darkness began to uproot itself from his mind and drain into the rift where it met something else, and through the part of his Other that still remained he too felt the contact, a piece of supernatural communiqué. He gathered only that a task was being scheduled; nothing more.

The rift gaped and rounded itself neatly into an orb, and he felt his Other cleave completely from him and suck into the darkening portal, shredding the mind it had so long inhabited. He let it all go. He felt the shadow of all that equipment above him, those thousand tons of abandoned space-tearing machinery plummeting down upon his head. This last thing was finished now, and if there was a God in the world then he would never wake up.

END PART I

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A/N: Before everybody starts to shriek at me, let me say that this is not the end of the story. This is the end of the beginning of it. Thanks much to all my reviewers for cheering me on through Part I, and keep a lookout for Part II. Reviews are welcome!


	9. Anxious in Amity

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

PART II: ARCHIVES

Chapter 9: Anxious in Amity

_Sr. Electrician's log, 3:08 AM, 10/2/--: Around 1:09 the turbines blew, half the wires in the plant fried, and now I've got six dead men on my hands and twenty more injured. That's all I know. You can expect my resignation tomorrow._

Sunlight cascaded over the darkened Midwest, washing over the tired face of an unfortunate survivor and creeping through the window of a certain ghost-powered freshman.

Danny sighed and opened his eyes. The light filtered through his blinds and lit up a picture of the Horsehead Nebula tacked up by his door, illuminating the colored red and green pillars of stardust. He grinned. That picture didn't even come close to the real thing. Danny rolled over, pushing back the wrinkled sheets, and lifted his head to look out the window. The sun hadn't risen high, and a few puffy clouds scurried around the blue. The digital clock on his desk was blank. He gave it a lazy smack, with no effect but to produce a huge lump of free-floating anxiety in his forehead. Danny dismissed it as early morning paranoia. The power must be out. That was all.

Danny drew his feet over the bed, stretched, and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen. An opened box of cereal sat on the table, and a raw egg slid around in a pan on the stove. Dad must've forgotten about the power. The egg crouched there in the pan and stared up at Danny like a big yellow snake-eye. "Hm." Danny drew out a fork and gave it a poke. The yolk dribbled into the white and coated the pan with yellow slime. Danny shivered, laughed, and fixed himself some cereal.

Something was squawking away down in the basement. Sounded like a television. It confused him until he remembered that the lab had its own generator, on separate circuits from the rest of the house, of course. Danny rolled his eyes, crunched some of his cereal, and padded in pajamas and bare feet down the metal stair. The lab door opened with a hiss of pressure, and there was his family clustered around a small television, the chrome equipment of the lab shining dimly in its glare. His parents stood, father tapping at one of the computers, mother making hasty sketches on a clipboard. Jazz leaned against a lab stool, arms crossed, facing the TV.

Danny slammed the lab door. His mother looked up and mumbled good morning. He wandered over to Jazz and glanced at the television, fidgeting with his cereal spoon. "Hey, what's going on?"

Jazz shook her head and looked back at him. "It's incredible. Most of the Midwest lost power because of this weird… Well, they don't know what it was, but there was this whole series of fires that broke out for miles around, and, well-" She waved at the TV and sighed. "Just watch. They're repeating the same thing over and over again anyway."

"-at one in the morning," the TV was saying. "Electrical fires erupted throughout Green Bay area." Danny stopped chewing his cereal. The television flashed pictures of whole neighborhoods going up in smoke, red and orange flames reaching skyward. The shaky perspective panned over the skyline. The entire city was on fire.

Danny had a sudden burning need to look out a window. "Hey Jazz, are we in any-"

"No Danny," his mother replied. "We're safe. It's just the power that's gone out."

Jack glanced away from his computer. "Green Bay. Huh." He shook his head. "I sure hope Vlad didn't get caught in any of this."

Danny set down the cereal and took a closer look and the television. Hopefully nobody would notice that he was having trouble breathing normally.

Jazz nodded. "No kidding. Quiet for a minute. Let Danny see the picture."

The TV continued to burble away. "-the only view we have been able to obtain of what appears to be the epicenter of the disaster. Authorities quickly closed the area to media and evacuated remaining civilians-" A crater flashed onscreen, a deep scoop in the earth that would have easily encompassed Casper High's football field. The earth around it was burned and bare, and the inside of the hole was torn with dirt and rock.

"Holy crap," he muttered. "What happened?"

Jazz shrugged. She picked at the hem of her shirt. "They don't know. Nobody knows anything."

"Is this like nine eleven?"

"They don't know."

"A tornado, maybe? Or a-"

Jazz whirled around. "What part of 'they don't know' is confusing? Nobody knows anything." She slumped back in her chair. "The whole disaster is a freak of nature." Danny looked down at his shoes.

Maddie put down her clipboard and looked over Jack's shoulder at the computer monitor. "Well, it might have something to do with ghosts. Your father and I are pretty sure of that."

Jazz threw up her arms. "Of course it has to do with ghosts. It always has something to do with ghosts."

Danny walked over to his father's computer. "Is that the same picture?"

Jack smiled. "Yup." On the monitor was a magnified picture of the TV image. "Got it a half hour ago from the network."

"Probably cost him half our college money to get it."

Maddie tapped her head with the clipboard. "Quiet, Jazz. We used the grant money."

Danny took a closer look at the picture. "Why-" He had to stop and clear his throat. "Why do you think ghosts are involved?"

"See these?" Jack pointed to a couple discolored spots on the monitor.

Danny squinted. "It's a white smudge and a black smudge. So?"

"Sorry. Let me zoom in." The picture cleared and focused on the two objects. The white smudge resolved itself into something that might be a body, and the black smudge rounded into a circle. "You can see dirt through the white man! It's a ghost!"

"Well, the guy might just have gotten dirty," Danny suggested.

Maddie shook her head. "We don't think a human could have survived this, sweetie."

"Maybe he got there afterwards." Danny looked away from the picture. The TV continued to show alternating images of the fires and the crater, and his sister lounged in the chair, worrying her shirt and watching the TV. Green Bay, Plasmius, and- Something else? Danny pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to clear his head. It was way too early for this.

He wandered from the TV to the rest of the lab, leaning against one of the many cluttered benches. His eyes drifted over the bizarre gadgets and unfinished projects, assorted anti-ghost inventions and switches for a couple things. Nothing he could use. Danny picked up a bare circuit, traced over its copper paths, and set it down again.

He should go and check it out, just to make sure it was something nice and natural that would _not_ want to hunt him down, but the place would be crawling with cops and it was already so late that it would be incredible if the figure in the picture was even still there. Sam wouldn't be happy to hear about this either, and Tucker would just be confused. Danny didn't know what he could tell either of them, but he wasn't feeling well about any of this. He rolled his head, exasperated. The black and yellow stripes of the portal clashed in front of him. As if things weren't bad enough, its pilot light was out. Danny stood and took a closer look at the welcome distraction.

The portal wasn't doing anything at all, actually. Danny put his thumb on the keypad, and the doors opened alright, but there wasn't anything inside it. Just the back wall of the Fenton labs. Danny strode back to his dad's computer and sneaked a printout of the magnified crater. He folded it his pocket and started for the stairs. "I'm going out."

His parents told him to be careful. Jazz asked where he was going.

"Just to Sam and Tucker's."

She jumped up and followed him into the kitchen. "I'll drive you. Give me a second to get the keys."

Danny smiled. "Thanks."

Moments later they were both seated in white two-door. Jazz shoved the key in the ignition and held it there, leaning on the steering wheel with one arm, the other clasping the key. She took a breath and turned the engine. It coughed to life, and Jazz leaned back against the seat. Danny watcher her stolid face loosen as she pulled out onto the road.

She pulled to a stop at a darkened street light. "This is horrible. The people who did this are in for it. Who knows what the politicians will do after 2001, and-" Jazz stopped. Danny wasn't listening. His whole manner seemed a little left of center. If he was stressed about something, usually he'd jabber and fidget and call his friends for help with whatever it was. She could only remember one or two other occasion where he'd been quiet like this. "Danny? Is something going on?"

"What? Why?" He looked away from her, adjusting his seat. "No. There's nothing going on."

"Alright, just checking. You seem a little off, is all."

"Yeah, well, Green Bay just got turned into the world's largest bonfire," he grumbled. "I doubt anybody out there is too happy about it right now."

They pulled up outside Tucker's flat and picked him up. Tucker had heard about the accident on the radio, and the two of them exchanged superficial complaints. Danny responded monosyllabically to most of Tucker's proddings, and the conversation went belly-up. Danny fumbled and said that he wanted to wait for Sam before talking about it.

Jazz stopped again outside Sam's mansion and waited as Danny went up to retrieve her. Sam opened the door with a falsified smile, and Danny took her hand and led her back to the car. The two of them crawled in, Danny sitting between his two friends.

Jazz drummed her fingers on the wheel and looked back at them. "Where to?" The backseat trio exchanged helpless looks and gave her a collective shrug. Jazz rolled her eyes and put the car in gear. "The park it is, then."

Danny sneaked his arm around Sam as they pulled into traffic. She rested her head on his shoulder and murmured, "I don't feel very well today. Has something gone wrong?"

"Yeah," Danny sighed. "I think Something has." A small shiver rippled up her back, something he never would have noticed had he not been holding her. Sam pulled away and looked out the window.

"What?" Tucker looked over at them. "Do you guys know something I don't?"

"No," they chorused.

Fifteen minutes later, all four were all seated around a thick wooden picnic table. Other families, mostly parents with younger children, played around them, throwing balls or frisbees or eating lunch. The kids were confused, and the parents were distracted, but everybody tried to put a good front on it. The attitude was infectious, and the foursome found themselves trying to look at the bright side in spite of everything that suggested the contrary.

Tucker folded his arms on the table. "Okay, we're all here-including Sam-so spill."

Danny explained what he had gathered from the television. Midwest power out. Green Bay fires. Small-town sized crater. They took it in stride. "My dad enhanced the picture they were showing on the news," Danny explained. He unfolded the printout and passed it around. "He says this is a ghost, and the circle thing is probably something important."

Tucker picked up the picture and adjusted his glasses. "How could that be a guy? Look at the size of this thing!" He shook his head. "Not even a ghost would stick around for something like that."

Danny quirked his head. "Plasmius, maybe. His outfit's white."

Sam barked a laugh. "Right. Plasmius did this. Let's go with that."

"It could happen," Danny insisted. "He's pretty powerful, and it's not I've had a whole lot of experience with him."

Sam took the picture from Tucker and looked again. "I guess. Maybe."

Jazz nudged Danny. "Excuse me, but who's Plasmius?"

"Oh, right." Danny looked up. "Well, I guess he's..."

"Hey Danny," Tucker interrupted. "Should Jazz be here?"

Jazz put her elbows on the table. "Yes. Yes Jazz should be here. You two-" She pointed to Danny and Sam. "-obviously have an elephant in the room, and I'm fairly certain that I know who it is."

Tucker blinked. "Okay, seriously. What's going on?"

Jazz sighed. "Danny and Sam think that Alex is responsible."

"That is so not true," Sam shouted. She nudged Danny. "Right?"

Danny inspected the grain of the table. "Yeah, sure."

Tucker groaned. "Not him again. Didn't you lock him up with Walker?"

"Yeah, but the portal isn't working, and Green Bay is ground zero for this thing..."

Tucker scowled. "You guys are nuts. How can you even point fingers at Alex, when for all we know Walker's still got him locked up? Where's your evidence?"

"There it is!" Danny jumped from his bench up and slammed a finger down on the crater. "There's the evidence! No WAY Plasmius would draw this much attention, and even if he did, he's not crazy or powerful enough to do anything remotely like this." Jazz touched his shoulder. Danny gave her a dirty look, but he mumbled an apology to Tucker and sank back into his seat. "Alex may as well have signed it."

"Touchy," Tucker grumbled.

Sam looked down at her hands. "You know, Danny, Tucker might be right." She smiled. "We are being a little unreasonable. Nobody here knows a whole lot about Vlad Masters anyway. He might have just gotten his hands on something explosive and set it off accidentally."

Danny brightened. "Yeah. That's possible." He sat up straighter on the bench. "Look, I'm sorry I've been acting strange today. I'm sure you all mean well. It's just that, since I got up this morning, things have been really… odd. Everything just kind of _smells_ like Alex."

"I know what you mean," Sam muttered.

Jazz cleared her throat. "Okay, I can understand that, but can somebody clue me in on this whole Green Bay-Vlad Masters thing?"

Danny clapped his hands. "Right. Vlad Masters is half-ghost, half-human. His ghost name is Plasmius, he's evil, and he's on a mission to marry Mom."

Jazz blinked. "Oh." She glanced over the crater picture again. "Too bad. I wanted to ask him for grant money someday."

"The obvious thing to do now," Danny continued. "Is to head on over to Green Bay, which is currently a blazing, possibly radioactive inferno, and check out the guy in the picture and the little circle thing. Who'd like to spend the weekend getting cancer and third-degree burns!"

Tucker's hand shot up. "I would!" They both collapsed into giggles.

"Cancer." Jazz frowned and shook her head. "Real nice, guys."

Sam cocked an eyebrow. "You two do realize this is a disease that kills millions, right?" For some strange reason, Danny and Tucker found that uproariously funny.

Danny gasped for breath. "Maybe it'll get Alex!"

"Brain cancer for the psychopath." Tucker composed himself, straightening his sweater. "Doctor doctor, I need an operation on my evil ghost-brain. It's too crowded in there!"

Sam's mouth worked stubbornly before at last melting into a smile. "You are so bad."

Jazz shook her head and stood up. "So we're going to Green Bay?"

Danny leaned back on the bench. "Yup. Here we come, cheese heads."

With much affected good-humor, the four of them piled back into Jazz's car, collected a map and gassed up Jazz's car, whipped out their cell phones, and arranged fake sleep-overs because their friend 'was pretty upset about it,' and a more accurate excuse couldn't have been given. As they got onto the highway, Jazz pushing the accelerator in the fast lane, she went over what she remembered from the last time she'd seen Alex: dangerous ghost, soul-sucking abilities, sadistic, murderous, and generally 'evil.' Jazz didn't like that last term. He had seemed evil, but he'd also been human, in his way. Up to a certain point, Jazz remembered, she had even been able to relate to him.

"Hm," she said.

Danny looked at her through the mirror. "What?"

"Nothing." Jazz reminded herself that Alex was a ghost, not a human, and probably incapable of psychological advancement. She should treat him carefully, but this one was no sympathy case. Highly unstable, too, given that crater.

Danny looked away from his sister and back to Sam and Tucker. They talked for the first hour and a half, exchanging school gossip and opining on the latest movies, dancing forever around the subject at hand to hit on something else. After a time they fell quiet. The day wore on, and the late morning sun rose to noon and fell again to heat the afternoon, glaring through their back window. They stopped once for food, lunching in some convenient fast-food joint, then stretched and climbed in again for the ride. They talked again, far enough away now to remark on the scenery and various off-beat roadside attractions. They passed away from the cities and through hills, orchards, fields, and cattle ranches, occasionally rolling through a small city or town that had grown up on the highway. The Sun passed down into the evening, and Jazz stopped to grab a couple cups of coffee before the long night ride. They three in back took one last opportunity to stretch, then it was back in the car, rolling back onto the road and into the oncoming twilight.

Hours later, Jazz slurped her coffee and stole a look in the backseat. Tucker slept, leaning up against Danny, his omnipresent tech backpack lying dormant at his side. Danny and Sam lay cuddled against one another, purposefully tangled in a somnolent embrace. The three sleeping teens breathed evenly, their cheeks and mouths clear of all worried contortions, smoothed into softness by unconscious dreams.

Jazz looked back to the road. She kept the picture of the sleeping children in her mind, wondering what they dreamed, wondering what she looked like when she slept. She wondered if they could have slept as soundly in separate beds.

You know, she thought, I think everything may just turn out alright, even if it is Alex.

---

A/N: Many thanks to smile7499 for the French correction. I suspect that you may be right about the style, but I'll have to think about that one. I want to continue with 10 before I go back to 8. And yes, I know this one took a while, but I wantedto get it right. Hopefully I did. Thanx also, once again, to the lovely reviewers: Sakura Scout, cheerin4danny, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, and smile7499.


	10. Crater Complications

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 10: Crater Complications

_Milwaukee Journal, 10/2, Jessica Donell: A nation mourns as the city of Green Bay burns, hundreds dead and unknown thousands missing… Efforts to control the fire are still underway, but the scale and number of the fires has severely reduced the chances of saving any significant part of the city… The _Journal_ was able to confirm that the light just east of Green Bay is indeed a government encampment established to investigate the mysterious outbreak of the fire, but the site remains closed to civilians._

Tucker poked Danny's shoulder and he opened his eyes. The bed was moving. Danny's clothing shuffed on the seat's fabric as he righted himself, and he froze as Sam shifted against him, nuzzling her head on his shoulder one more time before sitting up to blink away the sleep. Danny watched her, wide-eyed, and she rolled her eyes and smiled at him. Danny mumbled an apology and glanced past her out the window, where fields of blackened landscape glimmered faintly in the late starlight, rolling away to the dark horizon. The car creaked to a stop and the parking brake groaned, Jazz reaching for her lukewarm coffee. Beside Danny, Sam began to smooth her lightly tousled hair into place, arranging the small ponytail absently, and Tucker lugged up his backpack from the car floor and shuffled around inside it, the electronics within clattering as his hand spidered through them. Tucker came up with his digital assistant and settled back in the seat, the glow of its screen throwing shadows across his face. Sam quietly shook her head and Danny shrugged, and when he was sure Tucker was safely immersed, he gave Sam a light good-morning kiss. She pressed his hand and turned to the window. The fields shimmered and flowed in a strange light, the dried dirt and grass like water on a lake.

Jazz threw off her seatbelt and stretched her arms. "Well," she said. "Here we are."

Danny looked away from the windows to the clock on the dash. 3:30. Yesterday's events strolled into his memory, facts parading before an examiner. The night was quiet outside, nothing to be heard but the soft ruffle of fabric and sleepy, half-caught breaths. Outside the night was waiting, that strange shimmer calling them out.

Tucker dropped the PDA into his lap, unable to find an internet signal. "Did we just, like, pack up pretty much randomly and haul off to Green Bay in the middle of the night?" His mouth stretched in a wide yawn.

Danny wished Tucker wouldn't be so blunt about it. "I think so."

"Were we thinking clearly?"

Sam shrugged and opened her door. "Definitely not." She slammed it shut again. "It's cold out there."

"Hey Jazz, could you turn up the heat?" Danny asked.

Jazz jumped. "Hm?"

"The heat."

"Oh. Right." Jazz flicked it on and pushed out the door. "I'm going outside." She left them and stood at the corner of the car, arms crossed across her chest. Tucker asked what she was looking at.

"I don't know. I can't see around her." Danny shrugged. "It looks like there's some kind of light over that way. Maybe she's looking at that."

Sam stared out her window, her mouth forming a perfect 'O.' "You guys have to see this." She struggled out of the car and joined Jazz, Danny and Tucker following close behind. They stood in a jagged line, the four of them looking out over the fields.

"Incredible," Sam murmured. Jazz had parked the car on a high knoll at the dead-end of a dirt road, allowing a good view of the two lights shining side-by-side in the near distance, one of them to the right, the other farther away and to the left. The farther light burned a jagged and bloody red. As their eyes adjusted the red resolved itself into the skeletons of high-rises, hunched, crippled, and emaciated, clothed in flame that reached up to lick the billowing shrouds of smoke. The low booms and sharp cracks echoed to their ears as the cripples hunched ever lower, a colony of damned lepers. Miles away from the inferno shone the other light, a white pool on a level patch of the fields, channeled and carefully bounded to service a hive of urgency, human resources gathering to see if they could outguess Green Bay's scorching ailment, trying to prevent another disaster in a city just like it. Little black, shining specks-cars-glinting everywhere in and around it, parked about small islands of hastily-erected portables and booming tents. At its far shore, Danny thought he could see a line of dirt, and beyond that, a crater of near-blackness.

Danny dug a small pit in the dirt with the point of his shoe. Tucker heard the scuffle and looked down. "Second thoughts?"

Danny shook his head. "No. Just nervous." He rubbed his arms against the cold. "This is definitely going to be tricky."

Jazz glanced at him. "So, what do we do?" Tucker and Sam leaned forward to hear his answer.

Danny took a last look and the winding dirt road behind them and sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "The crater is over by those lights, and there's people around, so it's probably safe. I can always use my powers if we get caught." He stepped over the knoll and waved for them to follow. "Let's go."

They trekked over the landscape, most of which was quartered off into pastureland, brushing through the grass that darkened from brown to black before it disappeared completely as they crept closer to the bright floodlights. Danny, Sam, and Tucker walked together, Danny out in front, while Jazz hung back a couple steps, wishing she had worn different shoes. Danny plowed on ahead of her, his steps hardly faltering save for a few gopher holes or a rough patch, and Jazz didn't wonder that Sam and Tucker had followed him all the way out here. She had only seen the trio in action two or three times, but never in any detail, and rarely anything serious, at least to her knowledge. Yet here he was, here they were, trudging through the grasslands of another state towards the Feds, OSHA, WHO, and probably every other alphabet-soup government agency. The armchair psychologist in her asked Wasn't she worried that she'd get caught? What about all those college apps; this was her senior year after all. But Jazz wasn't worried. Danny and Sam were sensitive to something in the air, they had smelled it together from the moment they'd woken up the previous morning. Jazz had caught a whiff of it, maybe, of course it was probably just post traumatic stress disorder. For the moment, she was willing to consider the possibility that something more important than her college career was at stake.

Jazz nearly stumbled over Tucker in her contemplations.

The three friends collectively shushed her and gestured to a field a little way over. A black-clad man with a heavy assault rifle strolled around, scanning the country for careless trespassers.

Danny grabbed Sam and Tucker's hands. Jazz took hold of Sam's, and she experienced an unusual lightness of limb as Danny phased their linked group safely out of sight. They continued on silently, sneaking under the nozzles of several more posted guns, and twenty minutes later found them crouching among the cleared-away rocks and boulders at the border of a massive, well-lit compound filled with government drones that scurried back and forth like bipedal beetles.

"Okay," Danny muttered. For the first time since he'd woken up, Jazz noticed a flash of worry cross his face. "No noise, no extra movement, and especially no letting go."

"No kidding," Tucker added. Danny shook his head and smiled wryly.

They all took a moment to breathe, and then Danny stood them up-safely invisible-and led them into the light. Armed men strode everywhere, ducking into portables or nosing in and out of tents, many toting thick stacks of papers and apparently permanent scowls. Danny licked his lips and held his friends' hands closer. A balding man in a trench coat strode right for them, and before they could move aside, the man walked right through Sam. She cringed and made a soft noise in her throat.

The man whipped around and glared through the four intruders, the sharp eyes behind his spectacles sifting the dirt at their feet and flickering aside to check the dark corners of stair and rail about the nearby buildings. Jazz felt her lungs seize up with fear and doubt, but the man tilted his head and swung himself around, the tails of his coat swishing as he stalked away. Tucker shook out his weak knees and Danny half-smiled at Sam, but she clenched her teeth and looked away. Jazz suppressed her sisterly inclinations as her brother raised his and Sam's linked hands and squeezed, Sam's self-abasing expression turning a bit happier. Tucker pointed and waved to the hive around them, bringing everyone back to the matter at hand. Danny nodded and led them forward again toward the barrier of tossed-up dirt, a sloping mound of burnt-black earth and rock that stretched away into the darkness in either direction. They breezed around men in labcoats stooping to collect samples with a curt frustration that, if anything, exceeded that of the paper-carrying drones on the perimeter. The four walked around them when they could, through them when they couldn't. They were lucky. It didn't look like anybody had even touched beyond the crater's border, there was nobody crawling up or down in it, and inside they'd at least have a moment of privacy.

They were two steps from the slanting piles when the alarm began to shriek.

Every eye in the compound gravitated toward the crater, a half-second that startled the drones out their own private disgruntlements, then everybody was moving, rushing around with recording equipment and powering-up strange machines-

Danny looked back and forth at the mess, muscles taught as a piano wires. "Is that for us?"

"Probably not," Jazz whispered. "They wouldn't be looking for ghosts... would they?"

Their eyes drew toward a labcoat with a CD-sized device. He paced around, squinting from the device to the air in front of him, and looked straight at the foursome from ten feet away. His mouth split in a grin and he yelled that he 'had found it.'

Sam backed away as a cluster of shouting, paper and gun and vial-waving men beginning to form around them. "No, I don't think they were prepared for us at all." She would have slapped her forehead if she hadn't been holding on to Jazz. "We are so stupid..."

The men shouldered their guns. "Time to move!" Danny went ghost and flew everybody forward, closing the distance between them and the crater.

Sam tried to pull him back. "Go through the ground! That might block their signals." Danny nodded, and they phased through the dirt and into darkness. Danny struggled against it, going ghost and lighting his fists with incandescent ectoplasm, but nothing helped. Sam and Tucker had grips of iron on his hands and Danny could hear nothing more than muffled noises coming from either of them. He bent his head and plowed ahead, figuring they must come out at the interior of the crater, and after a couple seconds that seemed a couple years, they did.

Danny blew a small burrow in the crater wall with a bright flash of plasma, enough to keep them out of sight from the startled hive above, and phased everybody back to human. Back to normal. He sat against the rough wall of the hole, more than a little tired. "One heckuva morning."

Jazz shuddered and wiped the dirt from her clothes. "Please tell me you don't do this regularly."

Tucker laughed. "No way. We get in scrapes, but nothing like this."

"Anything ever with the government?"

Danny sighed and leaned back against the dirt. "This is the first time."

"Good."

Sam peeked out the front of the burrow and craned her head. Danny sat up. "See anything?"

She pulled back in. "Yeah, about fifty guys setting up rappelling gear."

"Okay, time to go." He turned to Tucker. "Go ahead and get out the thermos."

Tucker adjusted his hat. "Well, funny thing about that..."

Danny's mouth dropped open.

"Just kidding." Tucker laughed, pulling the thermos from his backpack and tossing it to Danny, who nearly dropped it. "Got ya!"

"I'm gonna 'get you' after we get outta this," Danny grumbled, clipping the thermos to his belt. "Tell me something? How are you still cracking jokes at a time like this."

Tucker shrugged. "Hey, somebody has to keep his head in this funeral."

Sam took another look outside. "Tick tock."

"Alright alright, come on." Danny dropped his legs over the lip of the burrow and set his arms against the dirt to push himself over, but something stopped him. A pressure against his chest that wouldn't let him forward.

Sam's hand was on his shoulder. "It's alright."

"I'm not afraid of him." I just can't seem to move from this spot, is all.

Sam's voice again. "We beat him once, we can do it again."

Danny looked down. The white figure lay on the ground below beside a black sphere that swam with dark, tinted colors. Danny gulped. "Nothing is going to happen," he said. "Nobody is going to be hurt." There must have been something besides a tremor in his voice, because Tucker and Jazz's expressions inexplicably lightened. Sam took her hand away, and Danny shoved off into the crater.

One by one they slid down the steep incline, collecting various bruises and minor cuts along the way to land in a heap at the flat bottom of the crater, painfully aware of the new injuries and the bright floodlights turning toward them. Danny had the distant impression that he was about to be buried alive. The walls stretched up around them for a hundred feet or more, and the shifting lights threw sliding shadows over the larger rocks all around them. The dark sphere glimmered and flashed electrically in the center of the crater's great bowl, and the white figure lay on its side, facing away from them. It wore a pair of ragged jeans, and the smudged whiteness they'd seen in the picture was from its t-shirt, stained with ash and dirt. They edged closer for a better look, and Danny wrinkled his nose. It didn't really look like Alex, but the hair on the back of his neck told him there could be no mistake about it.

"What's it doing?" Jazz shaded her eyes for a better look.

"Um, taking a nap? Maybe it's dead." Tucker shrugged. "Oh well, time to go."

Sam had followed a little behind Danny. He looked at her, and past her to the rappellers, who were, oddly enough, scrapping with each other on their way down. The crater was deep, but he'd give it about two minutes maximum before they arrived. He went ghost and prepared a beam. "If he hasn't started spouting off by now, than chances are he's not explosive. I'm going to smack him with something."

Jazz gasped. "But if it's Alex! Danny, don't-" But the little green ball of ectoplasm flew through the air and struck the figure, flopping him over onto his stomach. Everybody held their breath, the feds on the hill stood tense, but the figure groaned, rolled over and sat up, knees and arms splayed out to support himself. "What- huh?"

He was a college kid, no aura at all. A long, unwrinkled face stretched across a couple high cheekbones, etched in skin on a skull that wobbled atop a tall but fairly built body. Norwegian or German ethnicity, maybe.

Tucker let out a breath. "Okay, that is not Alex."

Danny shook his head. "No, that's him alright." But there's something seriously wrong here.

Jazz walked toward it, Danny and company close behind. They stopped when it was close enough to hear, far away enough to dodge. Jazz looked down at him. "Hello?"

Alex shook his head and looked at the dirt. His eyes moved from the ground to his own hands, traveling up to meet Jazz's tentative gaze and drifting there. Danny brought the glow on his hands to life, but there was nothing in those brown irises but animal confusion. Alex worked his jaw noiselessly and his fists closed on handfuls of dirt. Danny got ready to fight, but there was no need. Alex burst out in laughter.

The men on the walls didn't move but to aim their guns, waiting. The laughter scraped across the rock, fingernails on a blackboard, and Danny and Sam automatically found each other's hands as Jazz and Tucker scooted closer, the group tightening itself against the hysteria. The laughter roared and then echoed before at last ebbing away, and Alex collapsed back with a puff of dirt, still giggling a little. "Figures." He shook his head, smirking. "It figures."

Tucker shuddered in a cold he hadn't noticed before. "Okay, so it is Alex."

The figure on the ground raised his head. "Alex?" He glanced across them, almost interested. "Alex?" Danny didn't trust him any farther than he could throw him, and last time they'd met he'd only barely managed to throw him far enough. "C'mon guys, seriously. Who now?"

This is wrong. His speech is wrong, that black sphere-thing feels wrong, this whole place is wrong. "You." Danny stood out from the group, taking what he hoped was an aggressive stance. "You're Alex. Your name is Alex."

Alex gave him a long, confused stare that made Danny wish he would just attack him the old-fashioned way. "Well, you can have the name. I don't want it."

Danny couldn't tell if he was a ghost or not. The chest moved up and down, rippling and smoothing the t-shirt with breath. The face was empty and vacant, but the expression wasn't alien. A blank, vacuous hopelessness, yes, but still human. Danny stepped closer without meaning to, looking more carefully. The old evil, the black tentacles, were gone. Danny was sure of that, but now there was something else, something worse. Something of the future in those glazed brown eyes that flickered to life and caught Danny's gaze. The mouth cracked into a sneer and before Danny could back away Alex was standing, standing at his full human height and looking right at him, seizing his shoulders without touching him, closing fingers around his throat without stretching out his arms.

"You see something you like? You see what's going to happen, you miserable little hero?" Danny didn't understand. There was nothing like the old blackness holding him, no tangible force at all. But he couldn't tear away. "You see what I have done now? You see with your little green eyes, you small-minded fool? This portal? You see?" Reality closed in around Danny, but it was a horrible, revolting reality nothing like the night of his anniversary-had that only been a day ago?-this was a reality of scorched earth and waste that slithered up around him, around the animated maniac, around every cold inanimate and every beating heart, coiling and clouding and slowly degrading until the day poisoned fangs dropped down from the heavens and closed over all. Alex's voice cracked and splintered, collapsing under its own weight. "See what I have done to you..." And a shallow trickle of liquid slipped from his eye and wet the dust at his feet.

A jerk on the thermos' belt yanked Danny back into reality and a beam raced over his shoulder to swallow Alex, dissolving and pulling him back and away into itself. Danny heard Tucker spin the thermos lid shut, and the three of them stood around him, Sam's hand on his arm, looking into his face. Danny tried and failed to come up with something reassuring. He watched Sam's expression change for the worse and felt the chill of a blunt metal point at the base of his neck.

"Turn around and drop the device."

Tucker let the thermos thump to the ground and Danny turned to come face to face with the nozzle of a jet-black hand gun. "You're under arrest for violating Emergency Measures 119, 648, and 390." A pair of heavy cuffs snapped shut on his wrists, and around him Sam, Tucker, and Jazz struggled against the same. "You four are going to have to come with us." The man's face was half-hidden under a visor. His hands were gloved and his padded jacket was fattened with a bullet-proof vest.

Danny glared at the gun and smacked it away. "Can you guys just give me a BREAK!?"

---

A/N: Thanx much to reviewers Cheerin4danny, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, and Sakura Scout! Next chapter we'll leave the angst to simmer for a bit while Danny and co. meet the harried staff of the Federal Bureau of Prestidigitation. Reviews are heartily encouraged!


	11. The Unusual Suspects

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 11: The Unusual Suspects

_Classified memo, FBI Director Johnson to the President dated 10/2: Sir, I am not sure you are aware of the severity of our situation here in Green Bay. We have just apprehended four highly suspicious trespassers caught in the act of disturbing our primary suspect… I have thus far trusted your judgment in leaving the matter to the FBP and its eccentric management, but now I must protest that the critical nature of the situation demands the attention of professionals if you wish to avoid another disaster._

"They used a TAZER." McKinley folded his hands across the desk, removing his glasses to get a better look at his assistant. "They used a TAZER on Danny Phantom."

The assistant took a nervous breath, feeling the heavy weight of inexperience. He'd been hired a couple months ago, and McKinley had fifty years of life and twenty years of FBP work on him. "He was being hostile, sir." The assistant licked his dry lips as McKinley's keen eyes searched his own. "I believe the FBI may also have, ah, used tranquilizers. Sir."

McKinley shook his head, the corners of his mouth twitching up. "Did it work?"

"No. No, I don't believe so, sir. The FBI had some trouble with him until they let our guys help 'em out. Help them catch the Phantom, I mean." McKinley chuckled, and the assistant let some amusement slip into his tone. "Apparently the FBI isn't used to ghosts."

"Johnson must be thrilled."

The assistant nodded. "That's actually what I wanted to speak with you about. Johnson is getting ready to do his own interrogations."

"Johnson..." McKinley muttered, letting his head drop back on the chair's tall back. He pushed up from his desk and straightened his jacket, taking a last hurried look at some reports before striding from the office and leaving the door to swing shut. The assistant hesitated, opened his mouth for a question he couldn't quite muster, and with a final frustrated sigh, turned to jog after McKinley. The frosty early-morning air replaced the stale warmth of the portable as the two of them made their way through the thick flurry of agents.

Nobody was ever surprised to learn that the FBP had begun as a joke. Legend held that shortly after Roswell, the President and several exceedingly liberal senators had been discussing the event over drinks, and one of the statesmen remarked how funny it would be it they did actually have a Federal Bureau of Prestidigitation to handle all the crazy reports received habitually by other bureaucracies. The joke had bounced around Congress for a while and then, quietly, rolled over into obscurity. The United States executive officer remembered that joke thirty years later.

Reports of the paranormal had grown in frequency, severity, and reliability. Independent researchers began to discover that ghosts were not a laughing matter after all. Documentation, pictures, and finally samples of ectoplasmic activity began to form a considerable pile on Big Brother's desk. Under rising complaints from financially powerful parties, in1982 legislators signed the Federal Bureau of Prestidigitation into existence.

McKinley wasn't the first director. Prior to his leadership, the FBP had indulged itself in extravagant ventures, public ventures, dangerous ventures. Early directors were too ambitious, risking the secrecy of the FBP for their own hunches and long-shots, deeply worrying those who controlled its funding. The agency had been on the verge of collapse when McKinley agreed to come on board, and it had survived because McKinley, the respected scientist, was as good at playing ball as he was at solving equations. McKinley knew how to keep in touch with the independent scientists without effecting a media circus. He could balance the budget and apply for discreet private financing when is was needed, and he could sort reliable applicants from the mentally unstable. Most importantly in the eyes of his superiors, McKinley also knew when to give ground. If he caught hold of anything the more respectable agencies demanded, he gave the responsibility to them. If anything big came up, he knew when and how to report it to the right people. As far as discipline went, the nature of the FBP's work gave it a higher tolerance level than most of the other agencies, but employees carefully screened and held accountable. McKinley had trained his staff well over the years and they knew how to do their jobs right. McKinley trusted them and the President trusted them.

Johnson didn't trust him, but this time he didn't have a choice and needed to be reminded of it. McKinley climbed the portable steps and rapped on the door. After a moment he knocked again and leaned lightly over the iron rail that ran alongside the steps, glancing out over the compound and checking on the general state of things. The agents bustled along among the portables, their sharp shadows criss-crossing and sharpened by the high-power floodlights mounted periodically throughout the camp. The records department was a hive of activity, and a couple buildings over several heavily-armored guards stood watch at the doors of the angular steel containment cells. The heavy structures had been trucked out from storage and replanted in the middle of this pasture to house, and they currently housed the two most valuable creatures in America, plus some perfectly normal high school kids. McKinley massaged his temples and shook his head.

"Come in," Johnson rumbled.

McKinley pushed open the door. Johnson sat hunched over a wide blueprint on the table, his brush of brown hair drooping slightly over his forehead as he studied the prints for a pretentiously long time before leisurely glancing up. McKinley suppressed his irritation; the blueprints were of the containment cells. "I heard you wanted to interrogate the suspects."

Johnson nodded, folding his hands across his desk. "That's right."

McKinley pretended to glance over the blueprints, calculating the best way to angle it. Johnson returned McKinley's quiet reticence with a snide half-smile, enough to remind McKinley of Johnson's oft-stated opinion that men in their early forties were more competent than men in their late seventies.

"I recall reading that the President assigned this case specifically to me," mused McKinley.

"You recall wrong. He assigned it to us."

McKinley's eyes narrowed. "Yes, but can you remember who was assigned to which duties?"

Johnson sat up straight in his chair. "You're not qualified for this, despite your convictions to the contrary. A situation like this could be anything." Johnson gestured expansively to a bookcase of reports against the wall. "You see those? Many are files on terrorist organizations-directly from the CIA. I've got shelves of things on potentially hostile nations-the smart money's on China, in that area-not to mention the nuts here in the United States that may have done it." Johnson cocked his head. "It's not always ghosts."

"That's true," McKinley agreed. "It's not. But I wish you'd let me know when China gets the technology to pass solid objects through the earth." McKinley withdrew a picture from his coat and tossed it across the desk, an ectoscopic image of four kids phasing through the ground.

Johnson wrinkled his nose and pushed the picture away. "I'm not convinced."

"You don't have to be convinced. Just follow the President's orders."

"I'm going to be honest with you, McKinley. This is very serious."

McKinley hated to pass up such ripe grounds for sarcasm, but in the interest of humanity, he managed it.

"We need professionals involved. You've been very wise in cooperating with the wishes of the FBI in the past, and now you must exercise the discretion to do that once more."

McKinley shook his head. "I can't do that this time. These people made it past the perimeter defenses without causing a stir. They must have walked right through the camp, and the only reason we caught them is because I had special sensors monitoring the area around the crater, sensors designed to detect ectoplasmic activity. Your men got in a fight with my own on our way down to arrest them-"

"Hey, your guys were in the way."

"-and then, when we went in to catch them, it was my people who finally got things under control. The President assigned you to securing the area, but I have the exclusive duty of investigating it."

Johnson's face was blank. "I intend to contest that decision."

"Go ahead. For now let me do my job." He turned for the door. "My men are experts. There will be no mistakes."

Johnson's quiet voice followed him out the door. "There had better not be."

-

McKinley met his assistant outside. "How'd it go?"

He shrugged. "Johnson was... difficult. But he's not going to interfere." He pushed up his glasses and smiled. The assistant grinned back, letting his shoulders drop a notch.

"What now, sir?"

McKinley rolled the matter over in his mind, and the answer tumbled out his mouth. "I think we'll start our own interviews. It's been almost a half hour already." The dark sky was already beginning to lighten in the east, a welcome reprieve from the red glow up north.

"Who first? They've all been held in solitary, as directed."

"Good." McKinley began the walk back to his office. "Call in Jazmine Fenton. Arrange for her to meet me in interrogation."

The assistant nodded and hurried off, calling out to one or two others on his way. McKinley watched the small group cluster, exchanging a word or two in explanation before making its way toward the containment cells: quick, efficient, and obedient.

McKinley walked back to his office, pulled open a filing cabinet and thumbed through packets and papers, withdrawing the Fenton files and giving them an idle flip-though. The Fentons were good people. Cleaned up their own messes and put safety first when they thought of it. The parents shouldn't give him any trouble. McKinley tapped the files into neat stacks on his desk, catching an irritating glare from that old brass plaque on the desk's edge in the process.

McKinley had always tried to avoid it-the plaque was out only because people expected it to be-but this time the token Los Alamos award didn't seem to bother him. It meant nothing, he hadn't had the time to do any real physics work before the FBP picked him up, but it was something tangible from those few short days. McKinley gathered his papers and hurried over to the interrogation room, and the incident slipped from his mind, just like it always did.

The assistant and a few others were standing around inside. "Jazmine is already in there."

"Great." McKinley glanced through the one-way window into the cell. A red-headed girl sat at a table across from an empty chair, her back ramrod-straight, eyes shadowed with fatigue and hands placed quietly in her lap. McKinley took a breath, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. She jerked to attention, sitting up straighter still at his entrance.

"Hello, Ms. Fenton. My name is Arthur McKinley of the FBP and I'm here to ask you a few questions."

She swallowed audibly. "Okay."

He went through the routine stuff first, things he already knew. Questions about her school, her life, notable hobbies, that kind of thing. Fluff. Information that was always asked just to make sure the criminal wasn't a filthy liar. McKinley had run into a good deal of those in his day, but, true to his records, Jazmine was a straight arrow. She got antsy as the interrogation progressed, realizing that they hadn't called her in to check out her school record.

McKinley liked to start things off this way. It was always easier if the suspect wanted to tell you what had gone on; sometimes if you pressed too hard they held back. The strategy paid off when she cut him off and voiced her obvious anxiety.

"Look, Mr. McKinley, I don't know what you think, but we weren't trying to hurt anybody!"

Time now for tough-cop, but not too much of it. McKinley assumed a disapproving glare. "Your brother woke up a very dangerous ghost. He risked the lives of my men and countless others doing that."

"Yeah, I told him not to, but you don't understand. Danny has… well, all four of us have a history with Alex."

McKinley uncapped his pen. "Tell me."

She told him, alright. McKinley hardly believed he was hearing it: a tale of the ghost that, in a violent, roundabout sort of way, had convinced him take the position of director. McKinley took casual notes, asking to clarify different points and breathing silent thanks for years of practice with his poker face. He wanted to ask her more, if she knew anything of his history or weaknesses, but he held back and waited as she described the defeat of Alex six months ago and how Danny had arranged a custody deal with Walker. "He didn't want me involved anymore than I already was, but I did make sure that Alex wouldn't just be dumped somewhere without proper security."

McKinley nodded, looking at her over his glasses. He was an old man, but he felt like doing cartwheels. Rarely did the FBP catch such sane, observant witnesses, and a budding psychologist to boot. "How about his mind? Tell me more about your conversation at that cafe, before Alex got out of hand. Anything you can tell us about how he thinks would be greatly appreciated."

Jazmine nodded, nervousness giving way to a hint of pride, but her face darkened once more as she spoke. "Alex is a ghost, but from what I could tell, he works on human rules. He acts irrationally, but not inexplicably, an extreme case of the troubled kids I see at school all the time." She frowned at a spot on the table. "He's different now. Something's happened. I don't know what. You should ask my brother about it. I do all right with the analytical side of things, but he's much more aware of whatever it is that's going on here."

"Because of his prior contact with Alex?"

"I guess, but it's not just that. Danny beat him, and it sounds like everybody's been beating him since. Not that I mind," she said quickly. "But that much stress... I really don't know. Ask Danny. This whole thing is terrible, however you look at it." She glanced at the reflection in the one-way window. "Hey, do you know what that sphere thing is? Do you have any ideas on how to handle this?"

McKinley straightened his notes. "I'm afraid that's classified."

"Oh. Right. Well, I mean, how much trouble are we in? I mean, me and my brother and his friends. What'll happen to us?"

McKinley smiled and signaled the window. "For now, nothing." His men came in and stood waiting. Jazmine got to her feet, the fear seeping back into her face. McKinley stood and motioned to the door. "These men will escort you to a bunk and bring you some breakfast. We'll let you get some rest."

The men led her out, and McKinley took one moment more to glance over his notes, excitement stirring his old heart and reminding him why he hadn't retired yet. The very thought of it. Alex himself, after all these years.

He arranged his expression carefully before joining his assistant outside. "Let's have Tucker Foley, now."

The assistant wrinkled his nose. "The technophile?"

"Yes. Jazmine was telling the truth I'm sure, but it'll be good to have her story corroborated."

So Tucker Foley was hauled into the interrogation room, and McKinley had to laugh. The kid looked naked without his backpack. He kept glancing around, fingers unconsciously moving for a mouse or stylus. McKinley made a mental note to keep Johnson away from the material evidence. This kid was probably loaded with viruses, or bootlegged music at the least.

"Hi sir," Tucker stammered. "I don't know what this is about, but we have... Rights!" His face lit up pathetically at the word.

McKinley sighed. Every geek a Mitnick.

"You can't hold us here, and we'll uncover your conspiracy of, of um, secret... stuff..." The kid glanced around, shifting his weight as his confidence drained, looking as though he expected to be shot, drawn, quartered, and decapitated from several angles at once.

"Sit down, son."

Tucker dropped into the seat. "Okay." He wrung his hands, thinking up another line of attack. "Hey, I want you to know that all that software was bought and paid for-"

McKinley waved him off. "Don't worry. That stuff is for the so-called official agencies. Me, I just want to know about Alex. And the thermos, of course."

"Oh! Yeah, well, I can tell you a lot about all that stuff."

McKinley listened as Tucker first described the operation of the thermos, explaining that it froze the ghosts in what was essentially suspended animation. "It's why the thermos doesn't jump around a whole lot when there's a ghost inside." As to Alex, Tucker related the same story as Jazmine, with a few bonuses. Tucker told him where Danny and Alex had met: down at some old docks, number seventeen. McKinley wrote a note to himself to check it out later. Tucker described their conversation, basically confirming what Jazmine had said. "Sure he could pack a punch, but still. That ghost loves to hear his own voice." McKinley asked a few more questions, filled in Tucker's perspective of the fight at the cafe along with Danny's own reactions, noting particularly the strange influence Alex exercised over others' minds.

"Can you tell me any more about that?"

Tucker shook his head. "Nah. I didn't get hit with it until the end, and then it went so fast I didn't know what happened. It felt like my brain was dunked in hydrochloric acid, or something."

McKinley nodded. "Alright. That's all for now." He signaled to the window.

"Um, sir?"

McKinley stopped. "Yes?"

"Can I get my stuff back?"

He smiled. "We'll see."

Tucker's escort led him out of the room, off to another bunk, and the assistant ducked in to ask who should be brought next. McKinley glanced over his notepad and cleared his throat. "I suppose we've got to call in Danny. But keep his cuffs on."

Danny, the most thoroughly-documented 'ghost' the FBP had. Good kid, average grades, didn't get in too much trouble considering his circumstances, but he was a so-called 'halfa,' and McKinley had his doubts about that side of him. He'd met Vlad Masters ten years ago. They were arranging a treaty of sorts that barred the FBP from involving itself in his affairs, and McKinley had signed it under enormous pressure from the heftily bribed higher-ups. McKinley found a morbid sort of humor from the fact that nobody in Washington had mentioned that particular treaty since the Green Bay disaster. Danny didn't have Vlad's influence, but McKinley was more than a little on his guard when Danny walked into the room.

Danny walked with his shoulders back in spite of the cuffs on his hands and a slight limp in his left leg. His shirt was scuffed and torn in several places, proof that he had given the agents a run for their money. Danny sat down on the chair, holding his leg a little to the side, his stolid expression like that of a condemned prisoner, and he looked straight at McKinley and asked, "What."

McKinley did away with the introductory questions. "You're not very worried by all this, are you?"

Danny laughed dryly. "Nope. I'm scared out of my mind."

"Tell me why."

"Look, I don't know." Danny ran a hand through his tangled hair. "All I'm trying to do here is keep Alex under control. That's what I came down here for. Alex has a knack for making things very bad, very quickly, and I'm trying to figure out WHAT he's done NOW when I turned around and there's a gun! Not even ghost-effective gun, which is just annoying," he muttered. "And then the _tazer_-"

McKinley cut him off. "We're not as dumb as you seem to think. This agency has been around for decades, whether you know it or not, and we provide a large amount of your parents' funding."

That one got his attention. "My... parents?"

"Yes. Your parents. Also, keep in mind that we were letting Alex take the ectoplasmic equivalent of a nap because we didn't want to risk catalyzing a whole new reaction by waking him up, and we actually got some good, basic data on him using that strategy. We aren't stupid."

Danny nodded. "Alright. Okay. I just got a little worked up, I guess." He relaxed in the chair. "Alex is kind of popular for screwing up people's heads."

"How so, exactly?"

"In the past it's been an eye-contact thing. You want to look away quick when his eyes turn black, and when he gets really worked up this goopy stuff that comes out of them that he can use."

"Use to do what?"

"It just makes everything darker." Danny licked his lips. "More depressing. If you don't deal with it quick, realize that it's just Alex and not the way things are, it can get bad." He looked away. "Really bad..."

McKinley groaned internally. This poor kid. "But that isn't what happened just now. We've got it on tape. His eyes were brown the whole time."

"Yeah, that's the thing. He's not like he used to be, but it's worse. I don't know. I got up this morning and I felt terrible. That's where it started," Danny huffed, frowning. "You know what? I was out last night having the time of my life with Sam, and then I wake up there's just this feeling, just like when I got infected with whatever Alex was carrying six months ago. Alex gave it to me directly back then, the eye-contact thing I mentioned, but now it's like that bad feeling is coming from outside, and Alex has nothing to do with it anymore. I don't even think he has any of his old powers left." Danny fisted his hands. "I don't know what happened, but you can bet he was the one who made it happen. You need somebody to pound that creep, call me."

McKinley finished his notes and looked up. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Is that all? Can I go now?"

"One more thing, if you don't mind. What happened just now with Alex, in the crater?"

"He was crazy. I mean REALLY crazy," Danny repeated, squirming a bit. "Alex was evil before, but at least he made some sense back then. As far as what happened... I don't know. I don't know what I saw." Danny looked at his hands.

McKinley sighed. "Tell me as best you can and I'll give you food, a bed, and four hours undisturbed." He wouldn't be ready to move the team before seven AM, anyway.

Danny grinned and leaned forward on the table. "Really? You're not going to punish me?"

"No, but don't tell the FBI I said that." McKinley smiled at him. "We know just about everything there is to know about you, and to be perfectly honest, there isn't a man on my team who hasn't studied the reports and pictures we get on your fights."

"I had no idea. But you haven't told my parents?"

"Nope. That's your personal business and we don't want to intrude unless it becomes necessary." McKinley crossed his arms on the desk. "We are not out to make your work any more difficult than it already is, and I would very much like to be on good terms with you for this ordeal. You are right. This isn't confined to Alex anymore. We're still doing research, but we've got molecules we've never even seen before on their way to the linear accelerators for analysis. Whatever has gone wrong is going to take a lot of work to fix, and I hope we can work together on this."

"You bet we can, so long as you take these cuffs off."

McKinley smiled. "I'll have them taken off, just the last question, please. What happened?"

"He got... big." Danny explained, doing his best. "Not telepathy, exactly, but something like it. I just saw this big dark thing kind of rise up behind him, a snake or something, and it just poisoned everything and then destroyed it." He glared at McKinley's slant-eyed skepticism. "Hey, you asked. That's what I saw, and it didn't make any sense to me either."

"Alright. We're done here, for now, and you can go rest for a couple of hours." Danny lost his limp and almost had a bounce in his step as they led him off.

McKinley's assistant wasn't reassured. "Are you sure you want the cuffs off?"

"Yes. Immediately. But set up a sensor field around whatever portable he ends up in."

"Good idea. Who next, or are we done?"

"'Course we're not done. I've still got two more to talk to."

"The Manson girl and... who else?"

"Alex."

McKinley suppressed a smile as his assistant made a small gagging sound. "But sir, Alex is-"

"I'm going to speak with him. Go get him or you're fired."

-

With Tucker's notes, McKinley had them get the ghost out of his thermos and properly restrained. When he walked in, Alex was covered more or less literally from head to foot in ghost-containment devices and escorted on all sides by four armored men, one of whom carried the Fenton thermos while the other three toted various ectoplasmic bazookas.

Alex found the whole thing hilarious, giggling spastically as they brought him in. McKinley would have called him a druggie if he didn't know better. There was a tremor in his his legs and his arms hung like rubber. His face was fixed in a twitching rictus, his eyes darting and wild, but not supernaturally so. He had no aura, and no obvious transparency. They reached the desk and the guards shoved him down into the chair, positioning themselves carefully, two behind Alex and two beside the desk facing him.

Alex stared at McKinley, his twisted smile widening. "Welcome to the monkey house." He giggled.

Nonsense speech meant very little mental clarity, or some kind of clever information barrier. Or both. "So you're Alex," McKinley observed.

"That's what they tell me."

"Don't you know?"

"Not really."

McKinley sighed. "So who are you, then?"

Alex shrugged. "I'm a dead atheist."

"Obviously."

"Yeah." Alex's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. He put his cuffed hands behind his head. Making himself comfortable.

McKinley drummed his fingers on his desk, wondering how he could draw anything useful from this. It occurred to him that it might have been better to wait, but the procedure had always been to get statements as soon as possible in order to insure accuracy. As McKinley mulled these things over, it came to his attention that Alex had become fascinated with the rhythmic movement of his fingers. The ridiculous expression was gone, replaced by something that might be curiosity.

"Something wrong?"

Alex didn't take his eyes off McKinley's fingers. He stopped moving them and folded his hands on the desk.

Alex put his arms down and started rubbing his own finger on the arm of his metal chair.

The guards shuffled their feet, and McKinley remembered the plasma gun on his belt. "What are you doing."

Shrug. "Dunno. Shut up a minute."

McKinley tensed, remembering pictures of the cafe incident's aftermath. "Stop or you will be fired upon."

"Jesus, you guys are dumbasses. I'm a fucking retard and you still think I can destroy the world." Alex rolled his eyes and resumed his action.

The guards shouldered their guns. McKinley discreetly motioned for them to stand down. Lewd and coherent speech was better than nonsense. "You strike me as a nut job, but not necessarily a retard."

"I'm flattered, but the word you want is 'asshole,' not 'nut job,'" Alex muttered. He looked like he was trying to remove a stain, but the chrome-plated chair was spotless. Under Alex's attention, a slight dark spot faded in.

"Knock it off, Alex," McKinley growled.

Alex cackled. He took his hand from the armrest, and now there was something black pinched between his fingers. The guards had their guns up in an instant. McKinley's voice froze over. "Fire."

Alex screamed and his body smoldered as the beams burned into him, cooking his guts, if McKinley remembered the weapons manuals correctly. He let several seconds crawl by before he told the guards to disengage. Alex shuddered and convulsed, his head rolling back on his shoulders and his body slumping doll-like into the chair. McKinley planted his fists on the desk, leaning over it to recite the same speech he'd told countless other disobedients. "Let me tell you how this is going to go. You are going to live by my rules or you are going to have an extremely tough time here. I don't know what you did in the past, but it will never happen again. I-" He stopped. Alex was laughing hysterically.

"Excuse me?" McKinley asked. One of the guards smashed Alex with the butt of his gun, knocking him onto the floor and abruptly silencing the laughter. "As I was saying, I'm not Walker. I don't know what little games you played with him, but outside the ghost zone people who die stay dead and there is no way in hell you are ever going to hurt them again." He paused, a cold sweat seeping down his back. "Have I made myself clear?"

Alex coughed and spat green plasma. "You are so frickin' stupid," he growled, shaking his head. Alex held his chest painfully on the floor, panting as he tried to catch his staggered breath. "We'll all be dead in a couple days! Dead!" he shrieked. "D'ya hear me, ya thick FUCK!" Alex grimaced, teeth snapping shut as a spasm of agony shook through him.

McKinley kept stock still. No aura, and ghosts weren't supposed to breathe. Alex didn't say anything more, so McKinley cleared his throat and started again. "What was in your hand?"

Alex flicked his wrist, tossing the black lump onto the table. McKinley jumped away and the guards readied themselves, but by the time they were in position the blob had dissolved into the table. McKinley sighed shakily, straightened his jacket, and sat back down. "What was that?"

Alex dragged himself back into the chair and met McKinley's eyes with a relieved kind of smile. "That's proof of purchase. That and the portal."

"Neither of those proves anything," McKinley countered. He was having trouble focusing; he felt disembodied. Distant memories of catatonic kids floated unbidden to his mind's eye. McKinley continued anyway, talking himself out of it.

"We'll have them analyzed, and if you don't know or won't tell us what they are then we'll take everything apart until we figure it out. Whatever you have started, we're going to stop it. The sooner you accept that, the less difficult-"

Alex had been shaking his head. "No. No no no... you don't _get_ it. There's nothing LEFT of me that could give you anything. Just let me go back to sleep..."

"Fat chance. You made this mess, now you're going to help us clean it up."

Alex's eyes narrowed, wandering slightly to his right. He scooted up in his chair and brought his feet in closer, tensing up for something. With horrific clarity, McKinley realized exactly what was going to happen, but by the time he'd begun to warn the guards, there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.

Alex sprang up, moving fluidly on his long legs to attack the guard on the right, poised arms-forward and head-down to tackle him. Time crawled. McKinley saw the disparity between the motion of Alex's body and the expression on his face, the one animal and violent, the other fully conscious and calculating. The guard yelled and brought his gun up, and Alex closed his eyes as the nozzle of the cannon bumped against his forehead. The guard tripped backwards and squeezed the trigger, his knuckles white, and the two hung preternaturally suspended in midair while an innocent click sprang from the gun's barrel.

A low hum filtered through the air and then came a light, and the blast fried the atmosphere as a smell like burning blood exploded into the room. Just as quickly it was over, the guard lying on his back panting, and Alex on the ground several feet away in a highly dubious state of consciousness.

McKinley dashed around the table to check the guard, who was shocked but alright, and then Alex, who was god-only-knew how badly damaged. His skin, or ectoplasm, or whatever he was made of simmered and bubbled in places. McKinley muted the panicked yammering of his guilty conscience—how careless to let himself be distracted by simple memories!—and barked orders to the men behind the glass, instructing them to get Alex in a plasma tank for recovery. Never mind the chance that he might not recover at all.

The assistant came in after everything was squared away, lips pursed in frustrated indignation. McKinley endured his silent but emphatic disapproval. "Don't tell Johnson."

"Is this something personal with you?"

"No."

"Because I've heard some stories about you, and-"

"It's not personal," McKinley insisted. He gathered his notes. "I had nothing to go on. We've only interviewed one or two ghosts before, both predictable idiots."

The assistant didn't look convinced. McKinley shook his head. "We've only got one more to go. Samantha, right? After that, we leave a couple guys on duty and everybody else goes home for six hours of rest."

"Fine. But don't use this place. It smells awful in here."

They had Sam brought to McKinley's office for the interview, which he had bugged just as thoroughly as the official room anyway. Sam was a wary girl, wary and tired. Her hair was disarrayed, and a few dark circles highlighted her eyes.

McKinley tossed out the script. He wanted the night over with. "You're Danny's girl."

Sam stiffened. "Yes."

"Okay." McKinley rubbed his forehead. "First off: nothing bad is going to happen to you. We'll let you off at your parents' on our way into Amity and probably follow up with a call later."

"What about-"

"Danny's fine. We're letting him recoup in a bunk somewhere. There will be no crazy Area 51 testing on him, so don't worry."

"Oh." She picked at the hem of her skirt, confused. "Um, thanks, I guess. What did you want to see me about?"

"Alex. What do you know, what do you suspect, and just generally what do you think."

McKinley pulled himself through another rendition of the Six-Month Scare, as he was beginning to call it, and nodded for her to continue with speculation on the current disaster. She surprised him by pulling herself up straight saying, with a fair amount of confidence, "Danny can take care of it."

"What?"

She continued, unfazed by his reaction. "He took care of it before, and he can do it again. I don't know if you've seen him in action-" McKinley smiled to himself. "But he's the best around. You have no idea how dead I was when he found me," she insisted. "I was gone. But somehow, Danny found a way to pull me out. That's the miracle of my life." She looked down, rubbing her hands-wrists-self-consciously. "I'm sure it's not going to be easy, I mean, I'm not stupid, but I also know that he's going to find a way to pull us out of this." She locked eyes with him. "It's just a matter of time."

McKinley, in an unusual show of frankness, shook his head. "I've got faith in him too, Sam, not so much as you, but a lot. I want you both to know that whatever happens, I'll be behind the both of you all the way."

Sam grinned, the fatigue vanishing in the lines of her smile. She bowed her head. "Thank you."

McKinley nodded for her dismissal and gave his curious assistant some homework to keep him busy for a while. For the first time in ten or fifteen hours, McKinley had a moment to himself. He glanced at the tapes of the interviews and then at his densely-packed pad of written notes. His gaze wandered to the physics plaque, its golden surface dulled by a couple years' buildup of neglect. McKinley inspected it, wiped it off and shined it to his satisfaction. Taking the notes in one hand and a fresh sheet of paper in the other, he set to work on the case he'd been chasing in one way or anotherfor the better part of his life.

* * *

A/N: Gah. This chapter was tough to write. Hope everybody liked it! Last chapter's heroes are Sakura Scout and Cheerin4danny, and remember, you too can make a tired author squeal in fangirly-joy simply by pressing the little review button. 


	12. Bad Egg

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 12: Bad Egg

_Madeline Fenton's log book, 10/3: The equipment's been working strangely. I think the plasmic mixtures have been affected somehow, but for them to all be affected simultaneously in the same way would require some kind of chemical shift in the composition of the Ghost Zone itself, which is pretty much impossible ...I suppose I'll figure it out sooner or later._

Jack was drilling away at the latest invention, trying to get its edges machined properly so that all the interior circuitry would fit, when the cheerful little 'ding-dong!' of the doorbell sounded through the lab. He groaned and glanced over to Maddie.

"Can you get that?"

"I'm a little busy right now, Jack." Maddie sat hunched over a table, soldering the actual circuits for the machine, so Jack huffed and stalked up the stairs, opened the door, and stared at his son, his daughter, and several black-suited, sunglass-donning, stony-faced government drones.

"Yes?"

One of the drones held out a hand. "Good afternoon, Mr. Fenton. My name is Arthur McKinley and this is my assistant Gerald Stone. We're with the FBP."

"Oh," Jack said. He glanced down at Danny and Jazz. They both had their best puppy-eyed please-don't-kill-us smiles turned up full power, which wasn't so unusual for Danny, but the last time anybody had needed to reprimand Jazz was... Well, Jack couldn't remember the last time he or his wife had last needed to tell her anything.

"Excuse me a minute." Jack scurried back to the top of the lab's staircase and called down. "Honey? Some guys from the FBP just brought our kids home."

There was a clatter from down in the lab, then Maddie blew past him and had the front door open wide.

"So sorry about that. Please come in." She put her up goggles, and Jack smugly watched her give Danny and Jazz a withering glare, wiping those butt-kissing grins right off their faces. As the four walked inside, Maddie whispered to Jack that he should be nice; the FBP was a major donor.

She led them all into the living room, but nobody sat down. Danny and Jazz kept near the stairs, while Jack kept close to his wife near the coffee table. Maddie toyed with the fingers of her gloves and smiled thinly at the two agents. "Can I ask what this is all about?"

McKinley took off his glasses, and his younger toady reflexively followed suit. "I have other places to be, so I'm going to keep this short. We apprehended your children at the site of the Green Bay accident."

Maddie coughed, but not fast enough to cover her startled gasp and parental what-were-you-two-THINKING stare of amazement at Danny and Jazz. Their brown-nosing smiles were back, Jack saw. Danny gave a helpless little shrug, and Jazz clasped her hands and looked at the floor. Jack resented the small grin that appeared on the toady's face.

"Yes," McKinley continued. "Nobody knows it, and nobody had better continue to know it, if you understand my meaning…"

"We get it," Jack muttered. Government drones. Pfft.

McKinley smiled. "Good. There's a site outside Green Bay, the source of the disturbance that caused the fire. It's a large crater, and a ghost was found inside. I believe you've got a picture of it."

"Aha! I knew it!" Jack oophed as Maddie jabbed her elbow in his ribs.

"Your children approached this crater, armed with several devices from your labs—"

Ooo, Jack thought. There'll be firecrackers when these guys are gone. From the skittishness of the kids, they were thinking the same thing. Jack knew exactly what had happened. They'd sneaked off, thinking they were all gung-ho with the ghost weapons, then had managed to get themselves caught, probably with added prison sentences. Jack sobered at that one, but as he watched his offspring, their faces did weird little twitchy-smiley motions, and Jack could tell that, once again, he had missed something he should have been listening to.

"Eh? What?" he asked, clearing his throat.

"Medals," McKinley repeated. "They get heroic commendations for their brave work in the field."

Jack blinked. "What?"

"Danny and Jazz helped apprehend the ghost," the toady explained. "You must be very proud. Without their help, we never could have caught it."

"That so?" Jack looked at the kids again. They smiled and shrugged. Jazz had loosened up a little.

"Yes. And after seeing the marvelous work their devices did, we thought we'd ask you to come to work at the FBP's local facility to help with the research and development of the captured ghost."

Maddie looked away. "Well, this is a little sudden…"

"The pay is excellent," piped the assistant.

Jack grinned. "We'll do it." Once again, he suffered the wrath of Maddie's elbow.

"We'll have to get back to you. This is, you know, kind of a lot to take in."

"We understand." McKinley donned his glasses and made for the door. "Don't take too long. The situation is time-sensitive, and, as you know from the news, very delicate." He gave Maddie his card. "Call us."

Jack nodded. "Gotcha. We'll be in touch."

The two drones shut the door behind them, and Jack turned to Maddie, Maddie turned to the kids, and the kids turned to the stairs. "Get back here" Maddie started.

Jack grabbed her shoulders, grinning madly. "We are so going to take the job!"

Maddie threw his arms off and glared at him. "Jack, our kids"

"Were out FIGHTING GHOSTS! D'ya hear that, Maddie? They get MEDALS!"

She crossed her arms. "Dear, they were lying to us."

"Theywait, what?" Jack hated all this confusion.

"The kids must have done something beneficial, but it wasn't what those men told us." She turned to look up the stairwell to the second floor, where Jazz and Danny were both creeping around eavesdropping. "You kids get down here right now!"

Danny groaned, obviously exaggerating. "Gee, Mom, I'm really tired."

Upstairs, Jazz peeked over the railing and nodded her agreement. "We were up all night. Both of us could use some rest."

Maddie leaned on the railing, glancing over them. She knew very well that both her kids hated their curfews, and it wasn't yet three in the afternoon. Although, they did look pretty wiped out. Danny had some rings under his eyes, and Jazz must have been on some kind of all-night adrenaline-coffee buzz to look the way she did. "Well, alright, but we're going to talk about this later."

"Thanks Mom!" They rushed away down the hall, out of sight.

Maddie sighed and dropped her head on her chest. She could always catch up with them later. After smoothing things over with Jack and sending him back to the labs, Maddie pulled out the card. A gold-embossed business card announcing in rigid script McKinley's email, work phone, work address, etc.

Maddie sat back on the couch. They would, of course, be going to work for the FBP. The funding contract required a certain measure of cooperation when it was requested, and although Maddie was certain that she and Jack didn't _have _to cooperate, it was definitely in everybody's best interests. She'd heard good things about their labs; maybe she could figure out what why some of the equipment had been failing. Besides, if her kids were getting mixed up with the FBP, Maddie was going to make sure she was in the loop for it.

XXX

Upstairs, Danny dropped onto his bed, hardly believing what had just happened. He rang up Sam and Tucker, made sure everything had gone okay with them. It had. McKinley had covered for all three of them in pretty much the same way, and Sam and Tucker had both managed to get away with partial explanations to their parents.

Danny said goodbye to Tuck and dropped the phone receiver back onto its cradle. He lay on his bed, dangling his feet off the edge as he sized things up. Alex was back. That was bad. McKinley was helping, which was good, but Danny didn't know if McKinley's help would be useful or not. Sprawled out on his bed, Danny perused the landscape of his ceiling, chewing on his lip. McKinley would probably be fairly helpful, actually. He'd said stuff about a linear accelerator being used, and that his labs had been able to find out some good stuff using lab techniques, which was more than Danny knew how to do on his own…

As Danny mulled it over the darkness of night rolled over the sky, the full gravity of the situation landed on his head as a heavy, enigmatic grey blob of responsibility, pushing down his tired eyelids and signing him over to his subconscious.

XXX

The week began to go badly when Danny's alarm rang the next morning. It got worse when he arrived at school to find a huge fight in the center of the yard.

Several anonymous slackers were prancing around beating the crap out of each other in the middle of the school yard, their fists and legs flailing around like missiles, the motion blurring the rage in their faces. Danny watched, resting his hand loosely on the chain link fence by the sidewalk, as a couple other kids shoved through the thickening crowd to restrain the two fighters, but they too were drawn in and the fight became a brawl as the muted thuds of fists against skin and fabric accelerated.

Danny felt vaguely that he should be doing something, but the silence of the fight held him still. A violent kind of tranquility, a serene insanity that wouldn't bear his interruption. But for the punches and kicks, the only sound was the breeze rustling in the golden autumn trees. Blood dropped from the kids' noses and spattered in streaks across the lawn.

An administrator blasted through the double-doors of the school and stormed up to the whirlwind, roaring for them to break it up. Somebody dropped him with the sharp crack of a good left-hook, and the fight went on, and on. And everybody watched, glazed-eyes, animals in headlights, the sense of danger without comprehension.

Two or three more burly hall guards stalked into the yard, their authoritative voices thudding through the air as they shoved aside the much-abused double doors of the school. They hauled the boys back by their collars, catching their arms with beefy hands and gradually bringing the feuding boys to heel. Their charges blinked and shook themselves, adrenaline, shock, and anger all cooling into juvenile indignation at being manhandled so _rudely_, a sentiment they didn't hesitate to share with the guards.

Danny shook himself as the situation came under control, returning safely to the realm of familiarity. He jumped to hear a nearby voice.

"That was... weird." Sam stood by him, her own fingers knitted into the fence. "Interesting way to start the day."

"Yeah, well," Danny sighed. "They'll get detentions, maybe a suspension, and then sent home." Lucky. Danny didn't want the fight, but an excuse to walk back home didn't sound too bad.

The first bell trilled for class. Sam glanced at him, chewing her lip. "Do we go in?"

"I guess so." They didn't move, watching kids stream in to the big brick building, the fighters hanging around to be shouted at by the office personnel. Danny didn't know what it was, but something felt wrong.

There were all the same kids, all the same jocks and cheerleaders and some party animals. Maybe it was the light, or a certain prevalent slumping posture among the students, or some other little thing that lurked just beyond the edge of conscious perception. It reminded Danny of that raw egg he'd seen in the pan Saturday morning, before he'd heard about Green Bay.

Snake eye.

But that was crazy, worrying because school reminded him of a dumb egg. Danny smiled at Sam and kissed her cheek. "We'll be alright." He squeezed her hand, and they walked in.

Danny had review session in geometry, which went pretty well. He managed to pay attention and understand the problems Lows worked out on the whiteboard. Second hour held P.E., and at the beginning of class the teacher lined them all up, prisoners of war in a firing squad. She declared that she was 'sick and tired of all you snot-nosed little monsters' and announced the start of the dodge ball unit. Danny cringed when some kid spoke up from behind him.

"What is there to learn about dodge ball?"

The teacher growled at the kid and called him out to help her demonstrate proper ball-throwing technique. After watching the demonstration, the class decided it didn't have any more questions.

The teacher explained the specific kind of dodge ball to be played. A big painted circle on the blacktop, a bunch of balls and a bunch of kids, and if you got hit you were out. "That's not too tough for you idiots, is it?"

Danny had been ready to hit the deck when the whistle blew for it to begin, but the game quickly took on a surreal kind of order. Nobody seemed to be too hot on taking advantage of the obvious opportunity for pain, mischief, and all those other lovely privileges endowed on the participants of a dodge ball game. Danny's game was much more a dance than a battle, kids sneaking around throwing the balls, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make a nice smack for the teacher's ears. Kids were on their toes; movements as controlled as possible for a class of sophomores, everyone with an eye out for trouble.

A couple sharks darted about, the nasty kids even nastier than usual. Danny turned to see one of them gearing up point-blank to take out a couple of his teeth, but a hard smack from behind stunned him long enough for Danny to escape. Recovering from the throw, Joseph gave him a friendly thumbs-up from a yard or two away. Other bullies were identified and eliminated in much the same manner, the quiet majority against the vicious minority, and despite the electrical tension, nobody got hurt. Danny had never seen anything like it, and from the bafflement on Teacher's face, neither had she.

English and world history slipped by in a lazy river of droning voices and boring notes, nothing that couldn't be harmlessly slept through. Nobody snapped at the dozers, and quiet conversations went on without rebuke.

Danny doodled with a pencil, drawing little more than scribbles, catching the talkers in peripheral vision. Something wrong, he thought. All the right people were doing all the normal things, but the feel was all wrong. Nobody was laughing; maybe that was it. The girls, their shrieking giggles so familiar in these kinds of classes, had their voices toned low. A slow shiver crawled up Danny's spine as the class dragged on.

At last the school bell sounded for lunch. Kids popped up from their seats to beat the lunch lines, and Danny rushed to capture his tray from the garrulous, food-spattered lunch room and meet Sam and Tucker outside at their usual bench.

Sam scootched over for Danny. Tucker quirked an eyebrow at him, munching on a burger. "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!"

Danny thought that was a fairly accurate description of their situation.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Sci-fi techno geek…"

"Oh, that's great," Tucker motioned to Sam with his fork. "She's labeling _me_ now."

Sam took a sharp breath for a scathing retort, but Danny cut her off. "Guys, if we could stop the babble for just a minute, I think this whole school thing needs to be seriously dealt with."

"Killjoy," Sam mumbled. "And I wasn't babbling."

Danny looked closely at her. Despite her stolid expression, Sam's hands were shaking. He looked up, meeting her eyes as she looked away. "Did something happen?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "Oh no. Nothing at all."

"Absolutely nothing, or a weird kind of something-nothing?"

"Something-nothing," Sam mumbled. She bit her lip. "It's so _stupid_. Nothing has even gone wrong—"

"But it feels like the planet is upside-down," Tucker finished.

Sam sighed. "Exactly." She licked her lip, glancing up at Danny. "Hey, do you think this has anything to do with, with um…" She stopped. A thin quiet dropped down over them, pregnant with implication.

"Yeah." Danny poked his lunch. "I think it might."

Tucker scoffed, thumping his arms on the table. "You guys are so morbid." Danny glanced up sharply. Tucker looked angry, and a little disgusted.

Across the table, Sam glared at him. "Excuse me?"

"I mean, every time something a little weird goes on, you both start yelling about Alex."

"What? Tucker, you said yourself that things were getting odd around here." Danny put an arm around Sam's waist.

"Don't blame us for stating the obvious," she added.

"Things are weird, yeah." Tucker picked at the tables' splinters, uncomfortable and edgy. "But that doesn't mean that it's got anything to do with Alex."

Tucker glowered at the two of them, and through his annoyance, Danny felt the wedge coming down between himself and Sam, and Tucker, and division was something they could definitely not afford right now.

He took his arm away from Sam, a motion she mutely approved. "Okay. Do you have any other ideas about the reason for this whatever-it-is?"

Tucker sniffed, stabbing at peas on his tray. "Actually, I do have a theory. Look, this kind of schoolwide zombification and-or universal excitement thing happens every Friday before a vacation, every Monday after a vacation, and every time something really exciting or really traumatizing happens." Tucker shook his head and Sam and Danny. "Hello! Green Bay ring a bell? And we're not even considering that it might just be Spectra or some other small-time ghost."

"Yeah, but it's, I mean, this time things are, um…" Danny shut his mouth, surprised at his inability to argue that point. Tucker was right. "Hey, that's a really good point, actually."

"A good point from Tucker? Alert the media."

Danny nudged Sam with a prodding elbow, a small smile on his face. "Tucker does have a good point. Admit it."

She groaned and smacked him away. "Alright. You're right. Tucker's got a point."

Tucker beamed. "Thank you."

"But I really doubt this is Spectra's work. Green Bay, maybe."

And the rest of the day, barring several questionable incidents in the halls, actually went very well. No ghosts popped up, and Danny managed to have a fairly relaxing time with Sam and Tucker over at the arcades after school, though Sam didn't hang around for very long. She left around five, but in the light wind and low shine of the sun, she'd let him kiss her goodbye. Not as intense at last Friday, sure, but it put a light smile on his face that Tucker's teasing was powerless to erase.

Danny headed home as it began to get dark, lording a rare victory over Tucker as they parted. At home Danny finished up the little homework he'd been assigned, goofed around on the internet for a while, and went to sleep feeling pretty good, replaying scenes of past victories mingled with dreams of Sam.

* * *

A/N: Huzzah for updates!Good wishes and large, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies go out to Cheerin4danny, Sakura Scout, and Divagurl277. Stay tuned! 


	13. Strange Chemistry

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 13: Strange Chemistry

_Memo from Principal Ishiyama, Tuesday, 7:30 AM: The counseling department has informed me of a sharp spike in student discontent. Many children had friends and family in the Green Bay area, and we as educators should be sensitive to this without allowing the classes to degenerate into chaos. Try to strike some kind of balance._

The next day began quietly. Ms. Lows taught for ten minutes and gave the rest of the class to the students so that they could work on homework or ask questions. The kids took out their books and notes, but nobody asked questions and few did their homework. A pervasive air of academic lethargy thwarted all attempts at anything approaching serious work, which was just fine with Danny. He glanced over a few brain-draining problems before joining a group of kids who were engaged in the far more productive task of ogling one of their desk-mate's new mini-game systems.

Danny had tennis in PE, the dodge ball unit being unexpectedly cut short. The PE teacher watched them all from the corner of her eye, but the class sensed her tolerance and played with its own rules, taunting one another over the 'love' scoring and generally acting as though she wasn't there.

In English they reviewed a book, kids still goofing around, not paying much attention to anything. Halfway through the class the teacher snapped and screamed at them all to shut up, but it was a mild kind of screaming, nothing anybody took too seriously. She calmed down and returned to her thankless job as babysitter easily enough. Next period, the history teacher was either too smart or too lazy to try to make anybody do anything, so he clicked on an old movie and told them all to watch it or not; there'd be a test the next day.

Danny couldn't help feeling that the adults were purposefully lulling him into a false sense of security.

Chaos was nice, once in a while. Danny knew he'd done his own share of chatting and goofing around, but he'd almost prefer it if somebody would come down on it. Watching the movie in the dark history classroom made him feel caged. Looking around the class, his classmates' faces thrown into patches of dark and soft white by the flickering glow of the television, the teacher messing around at the computer—nobody was in charge. Or rather, the TV was in charge, its chuckling actors playing out eternal roles in a deceptively cheerful plot.

But nobody else looked bothered. The faces around him-talking and chatting, chins wagging as they loudly discussed trends and recent gossip-Danny wondered how they could disregard the obvious awkwardness, the feeling that this time the bed has gotten up on the wrong side of you. This wasn't a matter of 'emotional awareness,' or whatever Jazz called it. It was just a sense, a scent: something was wrong, and he was the only one who knew it. Then again, he was also the only one who knew of Alex. Danny rattled his pen against his desk, eyes on the clock. He was the first one out the door when the bell rang.

Sweet normalcy returned at lunch. Danny spent the time discussing various theories with Sam and Tucker, none of which held up under scrutiny. The whole awkwardness problem reeked of Alex, but Alex was locked up with McKinley, so that didn't make much sense. Tucker pointed out that nothing supernatural had actually happened; Sam and Danny pointed out that everything felt supernaturally wrong, worse than yesterday, and that that couldn't just be written off to a normal quirk.

Tucker reluctantly agreed that Alex might be behind it, but even so, what were they supposed to do about it?

Sam shrugged. "Well, what about McKinley?"

They rehashed McKinley's probable competency. Sam was the only optimist on that point. Tucker and Danny both thought that McKinley was pretty cool-he'd even let Tuck have his gadgets back-but Alex wasn't exactly a normal ghost-thing. And McKinley was still a government man.

"My parents are working with him now." Danny mentioned. His mom and dad had announced it to him last night.

Sam laughed at that. "I'm sure your dad'll really spice things up for them."

Danny rolled his eyes. "At least he knows what he's doing. Kind of."

Tucker shook his head, grinning. "Kind of? Danny, half his inventions explode when you try to turn them on."

"Yes," Danny said. "But they're usually non-lethal explosions. And don't tell me that _that_ doesn't take some skill."

Four classes down, two to go, and the next trial was chemistry. Nevers could be a real jerk, and from what Danny saw when he pushed open the door, it didn't look as though Nevers was slackening up on that habit anytime soon. The teacher sat at his desk, nerves wire-taught, slitted eyes washing around the classroom as kids streamed through the doors. Some notes sprinkled the whiteboard, various equations and problems left over from the last class. None of the kids liked the look of that; but by the time a half-hour had passed, it was clear that the equations were the least of their problems.

Nevers reached a break in the lesson, pausing after demonstrating a new formula on the finer points of chemical equilibrium. He'd been wound like a spring all through class, his relatively small frame filled with a subtle kind of malice that expressed itself as excessive laxity. Usually this was funny, since Nevers generally wasn't smart enough to be too cruel, but something was different today. The moment had arrived to go over last night's problem set, and Danny wondered if it was too late to get a bathroom pass.

Nevers slapped his ruler across his palm, strolling around the class, surveying his captive audience. What he was doing was no more secret to the other kids than it was to Danny. Usually Nevers' pranks were more pathetic than mean, and even the unlucky student who took the punishment could usually find humor in it, mocking Nevers in the hallways over passing period. Not today. A nasty curtness marked Nevers' motion; a sadistic little smile rippling onto his face as he paced the rows, slapping that wooden, metal-edged ruler against his palm.

Everybody knew his game, and the rules were simple. If the teacher called on you, then you lost. To look alert without looking up, that was the trick. Whoever met his eyes would get the ax for sure. Most kids opted to stare at their open binders, following the direction of his gaze through the motion of his body as he turned and by the snapping click-click of his black shoes.

Nevers stopped his pacing and took a breath to speak; the class held its own.

"Hanna."

Exhale.

Hanna was a nice girl. Very shy, but nice, although she didn't do so well at chemistry. Danny sneaked a glance at Nevers. The teacher lounged up to the center of the room, his back to the girl. "Did you do the problem set last night?"

Hanna fiddled with her hands, looking down at her desk. "Yes."

"Perhaps you'd like to show us a demonstration on the board?"

"I didn't get very far-"

"I didn't ask how far you got." Nevers spun on his heel, facing her. "I asked you to show us how to do problem number... five," he said, after a short look at the open folder on his desk. "Do it."

Hanna flipped open her binder, its pages rustling loudly under her fingers. She unclipped a page and padded up to the board, jaw clenched. She turned again to Nevers. "I didn't get..." She caught his look and, sighing, picked up a marker. Glancing between her paper and the board, she began marking up figures and numbers, erroneous coefficients, unbalanced equations and insensible math. Her hand shook; her writing spooled small and wavered from her hand.

"Why Hanna, I don't think you got it right."

Hanna didn't say a word. From his seat off to the side, Danny could see her shoulders drawn up, her back to the class, head lowered. Anybody else would have mouthed off by now, but not Hanna. Not shy, well-meaning Hanna, who was brilliant at her painting but horrible at her sciences.

Nevers paced around the teacher's desk, standing right behind her. The ruler, its rhythm interrupted during her work, resumed its sharp slapping once again. "Tell me what's wrong with it."

Hanna turned her head, her eyes pink. "I, I um..."

Nevers had that smile, that sadistic little smile, in full bloom across his face. The class was stuck tight. Somebody should do something. To permit this was a borderline sin, but to interrupt it would be suicide. And half the kids wouldn't have been able to solve that problem anyway.

"She knows exactly what went wrong." The class shifted, turning itself just enough to see who had spoken. Chris, one of the smartest kids in the sophomore class. He stood up from his seat, his face tightened with something tactfully inscrutable. "There should be a two in front of the 'H,'" Chris continued. "And carbon dioxide should be in the reactants. The reaction is endothermic, so delta 'H' is positive, and it's spontaneous, so delta 'G' is negative. The sign on delta 'S' is positive, too, otherwise the signs would get mixed up and the equation wouldn't work." Chris broke into a grin of frenzied triumph and took a shallow breath. "Isn't that what you meant to write, Hanna?"

Hanna had stood open-mouthed as he'd spoken, but now she whirled to the blackboard-her pen humming and squeaking as she made the corrections, Chris nudging her along from time to time, but Chris wasn't paying much attention to her, only enough to make sure Hanna got it right. Chris was watching Nevers, who stared dully back. Hanna finished up the last lines of the problem and scuttled back to her seat.

And Nevers started in again. "Good job, Hanna." Nevers didn't look at Hanna, either. "Hey Chris, how good are you at math?" Chris didn't respond. Those behind him noticed that the knuckles of his hands, currently clasped behind his back, had begun to turn white. "Because I'm pretty good at math," Nevers added, inspecting a spot on his desk.

"Thirteen squared minus your current score, one hundred, is sixty-nine. You know what that means for you, Chris? That's your new grade. Mouthing off costs points in this class." The quivering student kept his hands in his lap. Veins stood out in his neck. Nevers smiled. "Sixty-nine percent not enough? How about twenty percent. You know I'm not kidding."

"I'll get you fired for this." The others had to strain to hear him. Chris' voice had sunk low and soft. "I'll see you out for this."

Nevers laughed. "There's this fantastic thing teachers have." He bent to look directly into his averted face. "It's called, 'Tenure.'"

Chris' hands swept from behind his back and balled themselves tightyly at his sides. "You!" he shouted. "You are so INCOMPETENT! You don't know a thing about what you teach. I know more chemistry than you! You teach inaccuracies and you test on inaccuracies and you're just _brainwashing_ everyone with your flagrant stupidity!" Chris faced the class. "Oh yeah. Maybe you guys don't notice or care, but I sure as hell do. This weasel-" He pointed a finger like a dagger at Nevers. "Teaches us LIES! Chemistry! A beautiful physical science, and this MORON just screws it all up." Chris hated Nevers, seething, fuming, accusing. "You hear me? You FUCK UP my beautiful science!"

Nevers gave Chris the finger and made a smooching sound.

And Chris punched him in the stomach.

The thin teacher jackknifed, holding his abdomen and stumbling back against the desk. Chris stood over him, breathing hard, took one fear-filled look around the class and bolted out the door. Nevers straightened himself enough to shout obscenities after him while the rest of the class sat paralyzed and open-mouthed in their seats, all except Danny.

Danny took advantage of the situation to sneak off to the bathroom, because before Chris had delivered the blow and just before they had begun to argue, Danny had seen a thin black wisp dancing, dancing, dancing in the shadow of Nevers' desk.

XXX

A search of the school turned up exactly nothing. A search of the sky above the school turned up more of the same, and even the dirty, filthy, creepy meat-mouse-and-cockroach-filled basement was clear. Danny found nothing he could put his finger on, but once when he coasted, just closed his eyes and let himself feel the gentle pressure of his intangible form passing through earthly materials, a familiar pressure squeezed in on him, a sinking, taunting feeling that didn't need physical manifestation to be felt.

Danny opened his eyes, bringing his mind back to his work. He took the feeling in context, storing it away for future reference, softly mulling it over as he drifted to his pottery class, the passing bell droning through the halls. Danny zapped back to normal in the bathroom, still thinking. This stuff wasn't going to come out and attack him. No, he thought, slinging on his backpack. This thing was going to wait. It was going to sneak around infecting people until... Until what?

Until that snake thing came. The snake thing that Alex had shown him.Danny shouldcall McKinley later, after he'd seen Sam and Tucker.

Class passed in a flurry of wet clay and hurried instruction, the pottery teacher worn-thin after five periods. Ms. Tray's bouncy enthusiasm had turned to stern anxiety, but the students worked quietly along, the loud kids for once silent in concentration. Work was better than thought for all involved, the way the wet clay could be bent and molded according to one's will, smoothing it out with thumbs or tools or winding and stretching it according to taste, and if you messed up, you just squashed the whole mess flat and started over again.

School let out, and Danny raced to meet Sam and Tuck on the lawn. Sam was already there, her face lighting up as she spotted him in the crowds. Before Danny knew it he was at her side and they were kissing, a deep, engrossing, thankful kiss that made the heavy chains of worry fall away from him, the feel of her soft lips, the curves of her soft skin as he ran his hand up her back-

"Tough day?" she breathed.

Danny broke the kiss and touched his forehead to hers. "Yup."

A hand clapped on his shoulder, and Danny jumped a mile in the air.

"Danny!"

Danny rolled his eyes. "Wow. Real nice, Tuck. What is it?"

Tucker was bug-eyed and panting. Danny's antagonism flew right over his head. "Chris! Chris got-"

"What? What did he get?" Danny shouted. "Caught? A year's detention? Imprisoned!" He crossed his arms. "Wouldn't surprise me."

Sam stepped away from Danny. "Um, Danny? Are you OK?"

"I was there." Danny explained what he had seen, the little twisting shadows and Never's unusual behavior. "Nevers had it coming." Danny kicked at the dirt, hands in his pockets. "But Chris was acting nuts."

"You know, he was probably driven nuts." Sam glanced back toward the school.

"Well you didn't have to snap at _me_ about it," Tucker grumbled.

Danny sighed. "Yeah, I know." He stretched his arms overhead, feeling like he needed a bath. "Sorry about that, Tucker. But you were kind of, y'know, interrupting."

Tucker clasped his hands in penitence. "Oh excuse me. I forgot that I was supposed to let you two make out, and THEN we'd go and save the world."

Sam forced a strained chuckle, enough to diffuse Danny, who opted to make a snooty face at Tucker rather than continue the argument. Sam touched his fingers, letting him know it wasn't a big deal. "You guys probably want to consider the fact that whatever has gotten into the school is probably affecting us, too." She cleared her throat. "That might help things, a little."

Danny frowned. "Well Tucker DID-"

"I think we should go somewhere and hang out for a while." Sam looked between the two of them. "Then we can talk about it."

"That's a good idea." Danny gave Tucker a sneaky sidelong glance. "Where do you think we should go?"

Tucker grinned. "I think we should go to Sam's house."

Sam shook her head. "You are such a mooch."

"Well then let's go to my apartment and play video games until our eyes dry out!" Tucker held up an appeasing hi-five for Danny, who took it after an instant's hesitation. Sam breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the two of them fell back into their standard goofball routine.

"Oh, wait..." Danny scratched his head, pretending to think. "If we do that then Sam will kick both our butts."

"We could cheat!"

"Tie back her thumbs!"

Sam laughed and laughed. "You guys are ridiculous. Alright, let's go to my house."

At Sam's house, there was much playing of video games and more laughing and hand-slapping, much slurping of soda and munching of pizza. They plugged in a battle game and battled communists, Nazis, and Viet Cong, scoring many victories over their digital enemies. They bowled a game or two and perused the TV stations, played a couple more video games. The impromptu party went on for much longer than any of them had consciously intended, and by the time somebody deemed it necessary to announce the time, it was nine o'clock.

Danny dropped his controller. "My curfew's at ten! And we didn't even do anything!"

Tucker shrugged, freezing the racing game in progress on Sam's big-screen. "That's not necessarily true. We de-stressed you."

"Which was nice while it lasted, but now I'm behind."

"Don't worry about it." Tucker reached over and clicked off the game. "I don't think it's Alex."

Danny stared at the blank screen, sitting back on his haunches. "That's almost worse."

"Hey, what was that?" Tucker asked. Sam watched Danny closely.

He smiled and waved it off. "Nothing. I was just thinking."

"Has that McKinley guy told you anything yet?" Tucker asked.

"Nope." Danny stood up and stretched, grabbing his backpack off the floor. "McKinley hasn't said anything, and neither have my parents. I'll see what's going on; talk to you guys tomorrow."

They said goodbye, and Danny left Sam and Tucker to clean up games. The maids could handle the food scraps. Tucker finished up and Sam walked with him to the door. Tucker turned on the threshold and looked at her. "I'm telling you, nothing's going on. We're stressing over NOTHING."

Sam saw the fear in his eyes and bowed her head. "Yeah. Probably."

XXX

Danny parked his scooter in the garage, leaning it up against some old tool boxes before pushing through the door into his house, which was completely quiet. Not creepy-quiet, but dormant-quiet. His parents were probably working late. Danny hadn't seen them since yesterday. He hefted his backpack up the stairs, which wasn't as difficult as it usually was because usually there were ten or twenty pounds of textbooks in there, but nobody had assigned him any homework so it really wasn't a problem. Danny walked up to his room, tossed his backpack on the floor. He caught sight of that old poster of the Horsehead nebula, towering and majestic in all its colors.

He would have liked to say a little more to Sam, back on Friday. Like how he loved her with every cell in his body.

Memories of last Friday brought back memories of the unpleasant business last Saturday, and speaking of cells, his sister had turned into a certifiable hermit. Danny peered out of his room to her door down the hall, which was closed. Danny knew she didn't have much of a social life, but the glances he'd caught of her in the halls during school had her looking harried, panicked, and sick. So either she was in danger of getting a B+ on her progress report or something important was bugging her.

Danny knocked on her door. Jazz grumbled something inaudible, so he turned the knob and stuck his head in. "Jazz?"

She was hunched over a stack of notes, a mug of coffee on her desk and a few hundred thousand journals scattered around. Probably not the B+ scenario. "Are you, um, okay, Jazz?"

She made a final scribble and gestured for him to come in. She looked... confused. The almighty know-it-all Jazz looked confused, and mildly desperate.

"Hey, Chris is in your chemistry class, right?"

"Yeah. Why?" He came in and shut the door behind him. Hopefully his parents weren't coming home any time soon. "Is today's panic session over Chris?"

"In a way." She shuffled through her journals for a second. Danny recognized them as the logs she kept of her counseling sessions. "Ah-hah. Here it is." She held up an older journal, the edges of its hard-bound backing slightly bent and scratched. "These," she said, opening it for him. "Are my observations of Casper High's alleged Smart Kids. Just notes on the more intelligent sophomores, junior, and seniors. Some graduates.

"A lot of these kids didn't have the times of their lives in high school, but none of them has ever reacted violently."

Danny got the feeling she was speaking more to herself than to him. "Except Chris, apparently." He looked at the book with renewed interest, taking it from Jazz and flipping lightly through it. "So?"

"So something is wrong, Danny. Chris likes to talk, and he's certainly candid with his opinions, but he's not a violent person. Intelligent kids don't lash out like that because they have too much at stake, and they know it. They might complain to other intelligent kids, and if things get unbearable they'll complain to the administration and transfer out of the class, but they don't physically strike back unless something has gone horribly, obviously wrong with them." Jazz bit her lip, shooting a glance at her notes. "Chris was perfectly healthy."

Danny couldn't make much of the journal. Just a bunch of notes written in Jazz's shorthand, scattered here and there with psychological terms. He handed it back to her. "So he's an exception to the rule, maybe. Didn't get enough sleep, or something like that."

"Not likely. Something is wrong. And it's not just with Chris, either. The counseling department has been receiving three times its normal load, and today was worse than yesterday. Kids are nervous, Danny. I don't know if the sophomore class has caught it yet, but the senior and junior classes are really jumpy." Jazz turned back to her journals. Danny looked over her shoulder. Venn diagrams, bubbles, outlines... Alex's name popped up a lot.

Jazz touched his shoulder, catching his eyes as Danny looked up. "Be careful at school tomorrow, Danny, because people have extremely short tempers these days."

Danny swallowed. "You mean I'll get cussed out or something?"

"We hear things in the counseling department. If someone like Chris can get worked up enough to punch Nevers, then there are a whole lot of other kids who might do something a lot worse." She glared at the floor. "If it were up to me, you'd stay home for the rest of the week."

Danny knew that was impossible. He couldn't leave Sam and Tucker in the lurch like that, and besides, the school was his territory, and Alex was partly his responsibility. He'd beaten Walker's minor invasion, and he'd kept Spectra from turning the school's happiness into anti-aging cream. He would have to be there for the school, even if half of them hated him. "I'll be careful," he told Jazz.

XXX

Jazz watched Danny leave, the door clicking lightly shut behind him. She returned to her papers, scribbled down some more notes, accomplishing nothing more than filling space, really. McKinley hadn't given either her or Danny his number, and Jazz wondered if that hadn't been purposeful. If Danny couldn't find Alex, then there would be less risk that they'd start fighting again and make things worse. Of course, if either Danny or Jazz herself could elicit a beneficial reaction from Alex, then they'd also be losing that advantage. Unless Alex had too much brain damage from whatever he did to make that crater to speak anything but nonsense.

Jazz tore out a full page of her notes and stared dismally at the fresh sheet. Chris had been in the top five of his class, maybe the top three, and now he'd be lucky to get off without jail time. McKinley might know why people were being nasty, but he was running silent, apparently. Heaven forbid Jazz ask her parents, who had been known to eat and sleep in the labs when they were working on something exciting and had a knack for making the easiest sciences utterly inscrutable.

Until then, she'd better start on that English essay. She also had some pre-calculus work that required an iota of her attention. Jazz relocated her journals from her desk to her bed and dragged out the school work, burying herself in that rather than her frustration.

She threw herself into it, drafting, editing, editing again, rewriting, more editing. The essay dealt with _Hamlet_, and Jazz wanted to make it a good one. _Hamlet_ required a good deal of concentration to discuss cogently, and as she worked the time flew by. The whoosh of traffic disappeared from her mind, the night sounds fading into virtual silence as she concentrated. Jazz almost didn't hear the phone ringing downstairs.

She gasped and jumped up from her seat, racing down the steps and snatching up the receiver. "Hello?" Jazz checked the time. It was nearly eleven thirty.

"Hi, this is Director McKinley. Am I speaking to Jazz?"

"Yes. This is Jazz." Bastard, Jazz thought. I've been dying of information starvation all day and you ring me up at midnight for a news flash.

"Yes. Your parents asked me to call and let you know they'd be staying overnight at the labs."

"Okay." But one of McKinley's lackeys could have done that. She waited for the point.

"How are you and Danny doing over there, Jazz?"

"Terrible. Our school's a mess. Danny's dealing okay, but he's not feeling too hot about any of it. Neither am I. What have you guys been doing? Where's Alex, and has he been talking about any of this?"

McKinley made a noise that might have been a groan. "Oh yeah, he's been talking alright, but he doesn't say a damn thing." There was a silence as Jazz waited for him to elaborate. "Sorry. We're under some pressure over here, too, and there are limits to what I can say over the phone. I assure you that we have made some progress. Your parents have designed a top-notch containment structure for him, and we're working on analyzing some fascinating lab results."

Jazz knew too much about scientific weaselry to be thrown off by that. "So you have him in a good cage and you're stuck with a lot of inscrutable data."

"Trust me. We're working on it, and we're doing well."

Filthy liar. "Just try to keep me in the loop, alright?"

"Will do."

Jazz hung up the phone and returned to her work. In her room, she settled back in her chair before her mangled essay, thumbing the pages distractedly. At least they'd told her something. Not much, but it was better than nothing. She spent another hour or two on her work and made it into bed around 1:00. Four hours later McKinley called again, and Jazz scribbled a fast note to Danny before jumping into her car and jetting off into the dim morning light.

* * *

A/N: Thanks much to my awesome reviewers, Sakura Scout and Cheerin4danny. Poor Chris… And what's up with Jazz? Will I finally begin to update more than once a month? And when does the _butt-kicking_ start! Tune in next time for the answers to these pressing questions (maybe)! 


	14. School House Rocked

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 14: School House Rocked

_Jazz's note, Wednesday: Sorry about this, Danny, but something's come up. McKinley called, and I had to take off. See you later today._

Danny flipped up the magnet and pulled Jazz's note from the fridge. Perfect. "Nice of you to tell me where you're going, Jazz."

He crumpled the note and tossed it away, glancing to get the time from the microwave. Which told him he would be late for school if he didn't get a move on. Danny grabbed his backpack and some breakfast, changed into ghost mode, and took off for school.

A quick change in the bathroom, a short stop at his locker, and Danny arrived in class with about thirty seconds to spare. The last bell rang as he slid behind his desk, and after taking role, Mrs. Lows announced that they would once again be attending another one of Casper High's famously boring assemblies. She didn't use those words, naturally, but she might as well have as far as Danny was concerned. She herded the class up the halls to the assembly room, squeezing them through the tightly packed double-doors and into the auditorium where forty shmillion other grouchy kids were scrabbling for seats near their friends, paying no attention to the impatient shouts of the adults. As his class bustled in, Danny scanned the room for Tucker's tomato-red hat, spotting it near the back right. He couldn't find Sam. The auditorium was too busy, and the dimmed lights hanging over the audience let a person make out sharp colors and hazy shadows, but not much else.

Danny made his way over to Tucker and talked some other kid into moving away so he could sit down. "This isn't another dumb magician thing, is it?" The administration was fond of showing motivational anti-drug anti-sex or anti-alcohol presentations. Some of them were OK, but to have to see one right now would just be piling idiocy on insanity.

Tucker looked around. "Nah. I don't think it's one of those. Too much muscle running around for that."

Danny stood up for a minute, checking the side walls. Hall guards were positioned all over the place. He chewed his lip. "Have you seen Sam anywhere?"

"No. I haven't seen your _girlfriend_."

"Hey, I'm just wondering where she is, Tuck. Chill out."

"Chill out?" Tucker bobbled his head airily, imitating the stoners. "Oh, don't worry, groovy dude. I'm chillin' right here, ah-ite."

Danny laughed and slouched in his chair. "Ah-ite. Whatever you say."

A light flashed on the stage. The students, all seated now, looked up at the activity and gradually fell quiet, Danny along with the rest of them. Could this be a cool assembly, for once? No such luck. Several kids groaned as Principal Ishiyama took the podium.

"Good morning, Casper High." She smiled like a panther. "Recently, I've been hearing about some disruptions in the classrooms."

Kids around the auditorium laughed. "Ho-o-ooo, yeah." "Anarchy forever, ma'am!" "Jus' playin' around, Ishiyama."

The principal paced to the edge of the stage, the wireless microphone clinging like a roach to her lapel. Her voice boomed over the auditorium. "Everybody knows about Green Bay. I'm sure I don't need to remind you about all the people who died there, and the uncertainty surrounding the cause of the event."

"They still can't explain the spontaneous combustion of an _entire city_?" Tucker whispered.

Danny shrugged. "Not from what I've seen on the news. I mean, McKinley probably knows, but I don't exactly think he'd go around announcing it."

A hall guard yelled at the two of them to shut it. They did.

"We need to remember that this is an institution for learning. You come here every day in order to educate yourselves. It is the job—" Ishiyama banged the podium. "Of the teachers here at Casper High to prepare you all for life in the outside world, where, quite frankly, your parents won't be around to wipe your butts for you. The staff teaches with your best interests in mind, but certain individuals have been abusing those efforts. A startling number of individuals, these days." She paused, staring thoughtfully over the audience. In spite of the ripe moment for ridicule, nobody said a word.

"Such disturbances will not be tolerated. Know that if fights break out, they will be stopped, forcefully if need be. Unprovoked violence against the faculty will result in criminal prosecution. Detentions will be delivered with greater fidelity, and popular hangouts of known disruptors will be closely monitored or placed off-limits."

The kids' grumbling rose and fell in waves. Some like Danny felt their stomachs sink; those like Dash felt their tempers stirring.

The principal returned to the podium, resting her hands on either side of it. "I have tried to be lenient with you guys. I really have. But this recent outbreak of violence is inexcusable. The school must be a safe place, and certain steps must be taken to make sure it remains that way."

A pained look winked across her face, a moment of weakness that was effaced in the next moment by the iron-clad panther-smile. The stern disapproval returned to her composure, but the damage had already been done. Her audience smelled blood.

Freshman Travis Gehrty had been told to do the dishes yesterday. The parents left; Travis got caught up in homework, and his father roared at him before drawing back his arm and punching him in the chest. Travis went to bed crying, because his father never hit him. Shouting and belittlement, yes. Violence? No. He couldn't make sense of it, and Travis, feeling like a rotten sissy coward, went to bed crying.

Sophomore Rosie Handon had taken a test last week. She remembered the 'D-' on her progress report and all the time she'd spent studying to make that test really count for something—and then the thunderstrike shock of having the test returned with a tidy black 'F' circled in the corner. She'd studied, gotten tutoring, and asked the teacher for help, but she had still failed. Rosie would never be good enough.

Senior Victor Amory worried about his mom getting home late every night from a dangerous job. Junior Ben Campo had customers who weren't paying their protection money, and Leonard Maddox was getting jerked around by friends who mocked him constantly. Terry Verdun's late-night hotline-counseling was paying off in exhaustion, and Brenda Swink loved to dance but hated people making fun of her, which happened incessantly. Keith Walten hated his brother's pranks; Jenna Turney thought herself a socially shunned fat girl; Dash Baxter had to be everybody's idea of cool or else he was worthless, and for that he blamed Danny Fenton.

Everybody hated somebody, and the principal reminded everybody of that self-same somebody. The grumbling escalated. The audience rippled under the shadow of the podium as kids half-stood, wanting to say something—changing their minds—and returning to their grumbling and seething as the principal driveled on. Then Ishiyama showed that weakness, showed that she too was vulnerable to stress, and what little self-restraint remained among the students began at last to fold.

A rubber band flicked over Ishiyama's shoulder. "Who—?" She searched among the kids, but another band hit her in the cheek before she could catch the perpetrator.

"Hey! I said—"

"WHO CARES WHAT YOU SAY." The ice shattered. One student spoke, but the sentiment was universal. The student body reared up and crashed up against the stage, kids leaping onto the elevated platform like hounds, and Ishiyama's heels clattered on the linoleum as she fled.

"Let's get out of here!" Tucker yanked at Danny's arm. "What are you DOING?"

"Trying to see." Danny stood balanced on his chair, shifting his pose every second to keep from getting knocked down. Kids swarmed and kicked at one another, trying to get to either the door or the authority figures. Most aimed for the latter.

"This is... This is Alex all over again, Tucker." Danny felt trapped in a nightmare. He almost expected the chair to disappear from beneath his feet, plunging him into that frozen space between the waking world and the dream world.

Tucker grunted, shoving some kid aside as people poked, prodded, and punched him in their efforts to move. "Fine! I admit that this is definitely Alex's signature. Now let's GO!"

Danny shook himself free of it. Sam, he thought. Where's Sam? It was too dark to see clearly. The kids would probably maim anybody who tried to reach the stage controls, and—

"DANNY!"

Danny whipped around to see Dash surged toward him, bowling kids over right and left in his rage. Danny's mouth dropped open as he jumped down from the chair. "Tucker, we have to go now."

"Oh, ya think?"

Danny grabbed Tucker by the wrist, throwing his shoulder into the mob. He spared a glance behind: Dash was practically on top of them. Tucker jerked away. "I'll be fine! Go!"

Danny hesitated.

"He isn't after me! GO!" Tucker melted into the crowd as Danny turned and pushed ahead.

The doors. He had to get to the doors, or even to the soda machines where he might hide for the half-second it would take to go ghost. Of course he'd need a good lead on Dash for that to work, and somehow Danny doubted that would happen in this crowd.

"I'm gonna kill you, Fenton!"

"I'd really like it if you wouldn't, Dash."

Somebody off to Danny's left stumbled, sending ten or fifteen kids flying backwards, pin-wheeling against each other for balance. They crashed into Danny and shoved him against the wall and into something low, blunt, and cold.

A door handle.

Danny jerked it down and burst into the hall; the door slammed open behind him as Dash followed. Danny's feet smacked against the tile, racing down the halls—one good sprint and Dash might have him. He choked as something caught the back of his t-shirt and jerked him back.

Dash clenched the back of Danny's collar and threw him against the lockers like a doll. Danny's forehead slammed against the metal and he collapsed with a groan, a bolt of white pain flashing behind his eyes. Danny scrambled to get up and Dash kicked him, kicked him again, and brought an elbow down in the middle of his back.

"Dash..." Danny wheezed.

"What?" Dash grabbed the front of Danny's collar, dragged him up and held him against the lockers.

"Why are you doing this?"

Dash drew a meaty fist back. "Because..." One to the ears— "I..." One to the nose— "Hate..." Lower ribs— "Your..." Nose again— "GUTS!" A last blow to the stomach, and Dash let him drop to the floor, wiping Danny's blood on his jeans.

The cold floor sang against Danny's hot bruises. His head spun like a top and he could hardly tell what hurt and where it was hurting. He was pretty sure his nose was bleeding. He should've fought back. Why couldn't he fight back? His thoughts raced away into fuzzy confusion, and he cringed as Dash dragged him up once more, seeing through blurred vision the predatory smirk on his face. "Say goodnight, Fentina."

Danny started to panic. The panic brought his wide-open eyes in focus and froze his thoughts in shock, bringing along the familiar surges of fear and desperation, and those twin dread emotions engaged the tactical analysis he had learned through fighting dozens of ghosts. At the end of a domino chain of emotions, Danny discovered he could finally think straight.

Dash himself wasn't unbeatable, but if Danny went ghost, Dash would know who he was and tell everybody. Better to take a punch from Dash than have the entire town after his human self. Another option, then. Struggling would probably encourage Dash to beat him worse than if he just took it, and if Dash managed to seriously hurt him, Danny would be powerless to solve whatever happened after this. Too bad _he_ wasn't a ninth degree black belt. Mom would know how to handle a grip like this. Although Danny _had_ seen her practicing every now and then, and one of the oft-repeated tenets of karate was that joints were usually weak points.

Dash was holding Danny up by the collar, his thick arm outstretched and the inside of his elbow plainly vulnerable. As Dash threw his other fist forward, Danny brought up a hand and shoved the inside of Dash's elbow as hard as he could, breaking the grip and dropping clear of the punch. He scrambled up as Dash connected with the lockers, cursing as his knuckles hit the sharp gratings. Danny pulled himself up behind Dash, shoved the jock to the floor, and disappeared around a hall corner. By the time Dash had gained his feet, Danny had already turned invisible and was racing back towards the assembly.

XXX

"Danny!"

Sam kept trying to reach the doors, but the kids kept pushing her back. Too many people heading in too many directions, shoving her away and stamping on her feet. The lights over the audience had gone out, leaving the blinding stage lights on full blast. The guards fought against the walls, but people just kept surging toward them. Sam didn't know how any adults were still standing.

She didn't know how SHE was still standing, or how any of this could be happening. "Have you all lost your minds!" A girl brushed by her shoulder, someone Sam recognized. "Hey!" Sam tugged at her sleeve. "Valerie! How are we"

Valerie whirled about and slapped her.

Sam recoiled, shocked more than hurt. "Valerie...?"

"Gothic bitch!" she snarled. "You think you're better than us." She took another swing at Sam. In the brightness of the stage and the pitch darkness of the auditorium Sam couldn't move fast enough to deflect it completely, and Valerie's sharp nails caught her forearm. Sam yelped at the fresh pain as Valerie was swallowed by the shifting mob.

Nobody looked twice as Sam fell back holding her arm; everybody had a grudge to revenge. Most weren't heading for the doors, but the doors were inaccessible anyway in the dark and seething mob. Sam blinked back tears, feeling paralyzed and hating herself for it. If she could just find Danny, he could use his powers and have them both out and away from here in as little time as it would take him to phase through the floor. She wasn't lost yet. But she really did HAVE to find Danny NOW.

The stage lights went out.

Sam cursed at the pitch darkness, her voice joining with the ear-splitting bellows of the mob. The kids surged around her, cries of anger and pain ringing in her ears, and then, from a distance, came screams. Sam felt the edge of a chair jab her sides and grasped its arms, holding herself steady in the tide. The screams got louder, and closer.

Sam wanted nothing more to crouch down and wait it out. Let happen what would, and then walk away when it was all over. But she didn't. She grasped hold of the chair, hanging on for dear life, and slowly stood up enough that she could see over the crowd. Either her eyes had adjusted or light was coming from somewhere, because she could just manage to make out the heads of the students, and the black panel that was the side wall of the auditorium. Sam wished that it was pitch black again, because she could see that the screaming had come from the crowd.

A global fight, a universal brawl had broken out among the thousand students who attended Casper High. Nobody could reach the doors, and the fight was spreading from the walls to the center, inevitable as an earthquake, as deadly as a fire.

And Sam stood in the middle of the crowd. She could see the fight without straining, now, punches flying and fists cracking and all hell breaking loose under her nose, telling her that one way or the other, people were going to hurt today.

Something stirred, chill and soft at her feet. She leapt up on the seat of the chair, trying to balance herself and track the fight at once. The substance followed her up, caressed the toes of Sam's boots and swallowing the feet of every other student, slithering calmly among all the chaos, spurring it on and feeding on it, formless yet real as blood. It was a creeping, evil, irresistible blackness, and as Sam battled with panic she felt a cold sweat break out on her arms, a cold shudder sweeping along her limbs.

"DANNEEEE!"

"SAM! I'm coming!"

"Hurry, please…" Sam could feel it crawling up her legs; she jumped away and tried to shake it off but she could already feel it in her mind, felt the black, naked madness that had consumed the rest of her classmates. In a detached part of her brain resting thousands of miles from this horrific place, Sam wondered if it remembered her too.

Hands gripped her shoulders and shoved her down, through the floor. Sam shut her eyes and touched the invisible hands, the proof of life that carried her away, then up and up and away. The screaming drained from her mind, the violence and the terror washing away in rivers as the fresh wind flowed over her.

"What took you so long?" she mumbled.

She smiled to hear the chuckle in Danny's voice. "Sorry. I had a little trouble with the athletics department." The wind swept in Sam's hair, the pleasant weightlessness of flight bade her relax, and Sam kept her eyes closed until she touched down with Danny near a large bench in an open, deserted court of Amity Park.

Upon opening her eyes, Sam crushed him in a very sincere hug. "Thank you."

He held her shoulders and tilted her chin, searching her eyes with medical concern. "Are you alright? I mean, are you okay? Because back at school you sounded kind of..."

"Afraid for my life?"

"Yeah."

Sam shook her head. "Nope! I'm fine." She collapsed on the big oak bench. "But I think I could use some sleep. Or massive amounts of televised brainwashing." She liked the bench. The wood was soft and stable after years among the elements, with an old pine tree dipping down to shade it from behind. Good for napping.

"Great." Danny touched her hand. "I've gotta go get Tucker and see what I can do about the school, but I'll be right back."

Sam slouched in the bench, staring up at the clouds through the tree. She really should be paying more attention to all this. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Danny jumped back into the sky. "I'll be right back!"

Sam looked after him, the black tail of his ghost form disappearing over the trees. "Thanks again, Danny."

As Sam gave serious thought to the possibility of a quick nap, Danny was having some trouble deciding whether there was anything left of the school to save. The brawl saturated the air around the school, and by all rights there should have been at least one fire truck already parked against the curb, but there wasn't, and that black goop—Danny knew he'd seen it before this week, had to figure out where later—was swooshing over the windows near the hall leading to the assembly room. Which was blacked out. He couldn't fight if he couldn't see, so the power had to come back on. Assuming the wires hadn't been cut, Danny didn't think it was beyond his abilities to flick a switch. This couldn't be as bad as it looked.

"And if I believe that," Danny said, phasing through the first floor. "I've got a bridge to sell me."

The lockers whizzed by in gray blurs. Danny hit the area below the auditorium and pulled up through the floors, aiming for the stage area and the power box. A whiff of sweat and a plunge into darkness brought him into the shrieking hell of the assembly hall. The darkness lived, and as Danny burst through the floor, it wasted no time in making itself known. It was that old darkness that made you want to die... except no, this was a new darkness, Danny realized. This darkness made you want to kill. Burn the world and kill them all—

Stop. Danny pressed his hands to his temples. He hated this part. He'd forgotten how Alex's powers worked. The punches didn't get you, it was the psychology, and last time Jazz had told him... what had she told him about this crap? That it wasn't real? Why wasn't it real? He couldn't remember what she'd said, not that it had made any sense anyway... Danny pressed his back against the wall. He didn't know what else to try. Before he had held onto things, sights, feels; but now everything was dark and he didn't know what to do and it was all so damn FRUSTRATING… But he couldn't get sucked into this. He had to make it back to Sam. Sam...

Midnight clouds and secret embraces, the delicate touch of her hands and the beautiful way she laughed, her determined individualism, everything about herhe had to make it back.

He had to get the lights back on. Danny clenched his teeth and jogged along the wall, feeling for the rough protrusion of the power box and finding it. Some plasma in his hands, and a fumbling for the coded switches. The tiny labels peered out at him, and Danny didn't know what they meant, but he did know that a flipped up switch was an activated switch. He pushed them all up, first row, second row, and the third row brought a blaze of white, red, blue, and green lights blazing down over the stage and over the audience. The noise jumped higher as kids took their hands off each other and instead shaded their eyes. Puddles of black slid between their feet, retreating in satisfaction rather than fear. Just about everybody was bleeding somewhere.

Paying no attention to the stares he was getting, Danny gathered an enormous charge between his hands, feeding it with anger that he was having to deal with this crap ALL OVER AGAIN. The charge surged and flared between his fingers, and Danny growled in effort as he sunk his fingers through the floorboards and let the power loose, burning the floorboards green and chasing the last of the shadowed darkness back into hiding.

Danny watched to make sure it was all gone, smiling to see that the stuff was indeed responsive to good ole' fashioned plasma. He stood up and noticed the increasing amount of attention he was getting from the Casper High's entire student body. Danny gave it about three seconds before he was either thanked, attacked, or blamed.

Danny sighed and stared back at them. "You're welcome."

"Hey! You're that—"

"See you guys later." Danny faded intangible as the curious murmurs began to roll across the auditorium. After a couple seconds he spotted a familiar hat, and with a discreet flip of that selfsame hat along with a quiet instruction, Danny and Tucker met in the halls a good distance away from the assembly.

"I just about got KILLED!" Tucker jabbed an accusing finger at Danny. "Where were you?" Tucker didn't look too good. He'd definitely have some shiners in the morning, but Danny wasn't exactly in top condition either.

"I was discussing boxing with Dash."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Sure, I can see that, but that can't have taken _eons_. What else did you do?"

"Well..." Danny faltered as Tucker stared flatly at him, arms crossed.

"You got Sam out first, didn't you." He threw up his hands. "Sam first. Of course."

Danny swept a hand through his hair. "Tucker... she almost DIED last time this thing hit. I thought—"

"Yeah, you thought with something, but it sure wasn't your brain." Tucker crossed his arms, and Danny, God help him, was starting to lose his patience.

"Look, let's just go home and I'll meet you online for some... I don't know, checkers or something."

"Fat chance. I got a better idea. How about you and Sam just go smooch and you and I never speak again."

Danny was growing suspicious that the universe actually hated him. "Tucker, you don't mean that. You were just in the assembly hall too long."

"You keep thinking that. See ya around, Danny." Tucker turned on his heel and stalked away. Danny turned and calmly kicked the crap out of a nearby locker. It was just the black stuff affecting Tucker, just like it had obviously been affecting everybody else the last couple days. The stuff had probably set up shop in the walls.

Danny went ghost and floated through the floor. He didn't like to prove Tucker right in any way, however vague, but he had told Sam that he'd be back. He figured she'd be worried about him, and it was both funny and disappointing to see her stretched out asleep on the park bench. Danny shook her shoulder gently.

"Sam?"

"Mmmm?" She opened her eyes and, smiling, took his hand in her own.

The gesture made Danny uncomfortable. "Do you want me to take you home? I think I'm just going to crash at my house after this."

"We could hang out together, you know." She squinted up at him, her smile fading. "Did you get in a fight?"

"Yeah, Dash caught up with me. I'm alright." Danny toed the grass, avoiding her eyes. "I'd rather just go home, I guess."

"Is something wrong, or are you just tired of saving my butt?" Sam let go of his hand, sitting up on the bench.

"Well, Tucker's not exactly part of the team, at the moment..."

"He got mad, didn't he? I was afraid of that." She shook her head. "Geez, he's being difficult these days."

"He and I have been closer. He's just not used to the whole 'girlfriend' thing yet."

Sam raised her eyebrows. "'Girlfriend' thing?"

Danny shrugged. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah." Sam glanced over at a jogger coming up the path, the cord of his walkman jangling regularly with his steps. "Hey, do you think it has something to do with how much he knows about it? I mean, you and I have at least had some practice with the black stuff."

"Unfortunately."

"No kidding. But we know what to expect. Didn't Tucker just kind of get smacked with it? If he's just now figuring it out, it would make it harder for him to adjust."

"That's true." And very reassuring. "So he should be back soon, probably."

"Definitely." Sam rubbed her arms, glancing at the cloudy sky. "I'm cold. And thinking about all this crazy stuff has made me tired again."

Danny took his cue and offered her a lift home, which Sam accepted gratefully. Holding her hand on the flight was still a little weird, but it was good to have a second opinion on the Tucker Dilemma. Maybe Tuck did just need to go and be angry by himself for a little while, at least until he wised up.

After making sure Sam didn't fall over from sleep on her way in the door, Danny returned to his own house. The weird gadgets on its roof welcomed him back to the predictable domestic eccentricity, for now absent of its two adult contributors.

"Couch..." Phasing through the walls, Danny collapsed on the pillowed sanctuary of the living room, grasping on the coffee table for the remote. He looked for cartoons, but of course it was daytime TV, meaning stupid kiddie stuff, which he usually hated. Usually. Today, the stupid little characters looked oddly appealing, with their stupid little problems and fantastically simple lives.

"Mitsy! You don't have the key to the treasure chest! What will we do now?"

"Stick some nitroglycerine in the lock," Danny mumbled, cracking himself up.

"I know. We'll get Mr. Herbert, Mitsy! He'll know what to do."

"Yeah, he'll know to light up some nitro."

* * *

A/N: According to the reviews, only two people are reading this. If anybody out there is not reviewing because they think I suck, or because they think the plot of the story itself sucks, don't hesitate to constructively criticize. (Anybody who thinks the plot sucks has my partial agreement. I try to compensate with good style.) Either way, those of you who've stuck with me by either reviewing constantly (Sakura Scout, Cheerin4danny) or just hangin' out and not saying a peep, I appreciate your readership and hope this incredibly weird story makes your day a little better, or, failing that, at leastmore interesting. (grin) Stay tuned! 


	15. In Captivity

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 15: In Captivity

_Private log of Director McKinley, Tuesday: Tests on Alex have proceeded smoothly, but the data has resisted standard analytical measures… I can only recall seeing Alex's aftermath in the distant past, but lately I've begun to think that I've seen his face before, too. There may be public records of him. A couple people around here used to be FBI, so maybe one of them can pull some strings and run a check for me._

Alex had woken up exhausted. A headache like an internal laceration had been scored about his skull, and the hurt was in no way improved by the knowledge that something very bad had happened and that this very bad thing was all his fault. Alex rolled his head on his shoulders, not wanting to open his eyes. He didn't want to be awake. He ached all over and he wished he hadn't woken up... WHY would nothing let him just DIE! There must be people who wanted him dead badly enough, of that he felt certain.

But he didn't know why he was certain. The beastly headache and the foggy confusion confounded Memory, and Alex, feeling on the edge of moldy disintegration, was thankful that at least he didn't have to deal with Memory just yet. The only thing he was absolutely certain of was his name, and that, in its own way, made things a little better. Something else that was not as bad as it might have been: the rotted-out feeling, part weariness and part pain, had been muted by something cool flowing around him. Not an ice cold, but a softer cold. He'd experienced it before--once or twice before. It took him a moment, but Alex managed to place it. He was in a plasma tank. Did his eyes still work?

They did, and through a green filter of intervening plasma he saw linoleum floors, desks shoved up against the walls, and wires bound together with duct tape running along the floor's molding. Crisp busy men passed among the desks and their equipment, scribbling, printing, and typing. The room was small; from what Alex could see his tank was the largest machine around. Temporary facilities, maybe. As he watched the people move and write and work, they started to notice them, turning their heads to stare wide-eyed.

They all looked so normal. Busy and nervous, yes, but normal in a way Alex couldn't identify. He could see their excitement in the tremors of their hands and hesitance of their motion. They were excited about him, experiencing the 'thrill of the unknown' or some similar romantic nonsense. Alex shared the room with the scientists, his tank no more than a yard or two from the closest of them, yet there may as well have been an ocean intervening. He might as well have been an alien.

Alex's headache came surging up, and the vision of the lab swam away into darkness.

XXX

A shock of pain brought Alex back to consciousness. His headache seemed worse, if anything, and he curled his hands up and bundled them at his temples, massaging them heavily. The pain faded, and he felt the cool metal floor under his feet and the insistent tug of gravity. He didn't recognize any of it. How--? Alex regretted the question immediately. The headache bounded back, Memory at its flank, bringing a much more unpleasant kind of discomfort along with it. Vlad and the demon-thing, the portal and those damn _kids_ ... Alex groaned, allowing a slow, steady string of curses to roll from his mouth and slide lethargically across the floor, eventually reaching the ears of a group of men standing nearby.

Their shadows fell ink-black across the gray panels of the floor, sharpened and shortened by the intense florescent lights mounted on the ceiling. The floor reflected the beams, bouncing them up into Alex's aching eyes. He raised a hand against them and squinted forward at the people, his voice trailing off as he sought the sharp shadows' progenitors. Images swam, and shrank, and finally sharpened into focus.

They seemed unnaturally thin, sheared at the sides by streaks of crackling blue—the bars of a cage. Alex wasn't sure if that was progress or not, going from a tank to a cage. He figured he should get a look at the men, or scientists, or zookeepers, or whatever it was they called themselves. He sat up from the floor to see them better.

Their beady little eyes were trained on him, not distracted by computers or graphs like the others. There were about a dozen of them, fingers curled nervously about pen caps or cradling clipboards stacked with paper. One held something that looked like a fishing pole, only with a fork instead of a point at its tip and a keypad instead of a reel near the handle. The device that had shocked him awake, presumably. Alex noted the man holding it, a lanky guy with blonde hair and a Roman nose, before moving on.

Two others stood out to him. A man in a wide, orange jumpsuit and a woman with red goggles and a turquoise jumpsuit. Aside from their more or less ridiculous appearance next to the others, who wore only lab-coats, these two gave Alex an unnerving sense of deja vu. They didn't seem to like him too much either, judging from their tightening frowns.

One of the men towards the center of the group cleared his throat and stepped closer to the bars, blocking Alex's view of the two odd scientists. "Did you have a pleasant sleep?"

This was the old geezer who'd been harassing him before—Director McCurly, or something like that. Whoever he was, his manner was much different, stiff voice matching nervous posture. Then again, Alex _had_ tried to fry himself last time they'd met. Nervousness was far from unusual, but somehow, that explanation didn't seem right. A guy in charge of an agency like this should be used to crackpots' stunts. Alex sighed internally and let the matter go. "Your weapons aren't very effective."

The man glanced at him over the rims of his glasses in exaggerated good-humor. Like Alex was a child. "Fortunately for you."

"Oh, you think so?" Alex cocked his head. "I don't think so."

McDoofy or McHarry turned away. "We'll be doing some work on you. You'll be sedated for most of it--"

"Sounds fine to me."

"--so you won't have a chance to do anything ridiculous." He looked back at Alex through the bars, briefly. "You won't be able to get out of this cage, either."

Alex tilted his head up. The iron gray ceiling was low, but high enough to stand. The bars didn't glow all that brightly, and the overhead lights, while irritating, were far from intolerable now that his eyes had adjusted. Something that looked like a bed squatted in one of the corners. Alex stood and glanced back at the man. "You know, this isn't all that bad."

McDooky sighed. "As long as you cooperate, it won't be."

As time went on, the director-guy kept his word. They let him alone, more often than not it seemed. The director didn't come back, and neither did the two odd-looking scientists. Alex slept; his headache disappeared over time, and every once in a while they fetched him out for experiments, and the weirdest thing about the experiments was that Alex kind of enjoyed them, most of the time.

First they'd call Alex over the PA system, warning him not to struggle. Then they'd run something through the room--Alex could never figure whether it was a gas or some kind of plasmic electricity, but it knocked him out cold at any rate. The first time it happened, he sat on the edge of his cot and let himself pass out. He didn't wake up, not exactly, but his mind started working independently of his body after he had been out for an inestimable time. The first time it happened he was afraid that the blackness had come back, that he was hallucinating again, but a moment passed and nothing spoke or tried to hurt him. Alex was dreaming, thanks to the experimentalists, for the first time he could remember.

That dream and every one that followed after it during the subsequent experiments told him of nothing and everything, a sea of emotions and sensations too tangled to ever be sorted out. The sea was black and murky, the memories ebony black and goopy with wretchedness. Alex liked to see it. Individually the memories were unbearable, but tangled like this, so that he could just float over them and watch, they were almost reassuring. They reminded him that no matter how much he'd suffered, everything would be over soon. Occasionally, something would give a tug on a particular part of the tangle, trying to cut it loose and extract it. Alex tried to stop it, but there was really no need, since they never succeeded in getting anything anyway. Then he would wake up, back in his cage, feeling a little light-headed but otherwise perfectly fine.

Whenever he could, Alex slept. He thought too much when he was awake. He could feel the darkness spreading in the world outside, and though he didn't dare try to bring it out again, Alex didn't doubt that it would be far easier to produce than before. Not that rubbing his finger on an armrest was much work to begin with. The stuff was invisible but thick, and it got thicker when people were around. He didn't like it when researchers came to take notes on him. The blackness hung around them like a bad smell, and it made him nervous. Alex got the sense that it liked clumping near him if not on him, but personally, he hated it.

When Alex wasn't sleeping or worrying about the black stuff, he was remembering, and every memory was a disaster. He vaguely recalled the face and an acute hatred of that Danny kid, but Alex could never remember from where. The memories were too fuzzy to be placed. He recalled sucking the souls out of people, getting a drugged rush from seeing a life die under nothing more than his gaze. Sometimes his victims had fought. Usually they didn't. They could kick and scream all they pleased, but his eyes always beat them. Their mouths would hang open and their arms would go limp; the blackness would pour from his eyes, smothering the light in their own and leaving them empty, hopeless, and worse than dead. Free of the darkness and caged in a lab, Alex hated himself for those things he'd done.

He lost track of time. Experiment and sleep mingled under the constant glow of the lights, but once, a new kind of scientist came poking at him. A head-meat scientist.

"I'm Dr. Keller." The neat man folded his hands in his lap, reclining in the metal fold out chair near the glowing bars of the cage. Alex reclined on his bed, directly across from the man. He frowned and waited for him to continue.

"I'm a psychologist."

Alex laughed once. "You're shitting me."

The wiry doctor straightened himself in the chair, his slicked-back hair looking like black furrows across his skull. "No. I'm not 'shitting you.' I'm here because we want to make you more comfortable. We thought that if you tried to work through your issues--" The man stopped and straightened his suit. "What's funny?"

Alex shook his head, arms folded across his lap, completely unable to speak. He could hardly keep himself from falling off the bed. He was probably the first genuinely, innocently uproarious thing he'd heard in his life.

"I'll wait," the man said, not annoyed or confused, but patient. Alex found that even funnier. When he eventually caught his breath, the man continued. "I realize you've been through some things, but we don't think you're beyond repair."

Alex grinned. "If that's true, then you're more fucked up than I am. This whole frickin' planet is doomed."

"Really? Tell me about that."

"Well--" Alex stopped, a surge of doubt blanketing his good humor. "I don't want to tell you."

The psychologist looked concerned, a fake, pretentious concern made of gestures, not emotion. "Why not?"

Alex shrugged.

"Are you afraid?"

"No."

"You can tell me if you are."

Alex gave him a sharp look. "I'm not."

"Alright." The psychologist folded his hands and leaned back. "What are you, then?"

Alex flopped back on the bed. I'm a goddamned yellow-tail tuna, jackass. Somehow he didn't think that this was the answer the shrink was looking for, but on second thought... He smiled and sat up. "I'm a goddamned yellow-tail tuna, jackass."

The psychologist har-rrumphed. "Well, why yellow? What color does yellow mean for you?"

Alex hadn't seen that coming, but the shrink hadn't skipped a beat. He'd have to be a little more careful in this game. "Yellow is like fecal stench of my home planet. Plasma looks like a snot-shake, drunk by the foreign people of Nerdovia." Pile it higher and deeper. That should do it.

Mr. Shrink licked his lips. "Alright, then. What planet do you come from?"

"Mars." Alex had popped off the first phrase that came to mind, but it actually kind of made sense, even if it was bullshit. This was a fun game, in its own strange way. "My people are the rock lords of the shiny desert sands. They tango all night and boogie all day."

Mr. Shrink blinked. "Oh."

Things went downhill from there. As a last pitch, the psychologist explained Alex's recent history, including his run-in with Sam, Danny, and an ambiguous time under the keeping of Vlad, but it was nothing that phased him. It sounded dimly familiar, if not crystal clear, to Alex. Something he would have remembered eventually. They didn't try a psychologist on him again.

Alex slept and dreamed and worried and maligned himself. He didn't try any escapes, and nobody hurt him. All things considered, Alex thought he was having a fairly good time.

* * *

A/N: Celebrating 101 pages! Many thanks to Sakura for the no-review situation explanation. Thanks also to Cheerin4danny for her enthusiasm, and to the two new names, Rakal and Alleycat-2006, for their distinguished taste in fanfiction and their much-appreciated encouragement. :) 


	16. Briefing Jazmine

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 16: Briefing Jazmine

_Report to Director McKinley from Agent Camrey, 4:30 AM, Thursday: Sir, you're not going to believe this.  
_

Jazz had to check the address twice on her way out of town. McKinley's local headquarters or base of operations or secret lair or whatever it was had been built a couple hundred miles outside the city, from the looks of the map. Situated in some boring little farming town whose main attraction was probably gas stations for the truckers, she figured it must be a fairly conspicuous operation, unless it was underground or something like that. From the address, it didn't look like it was underground. 423 Baker Street sounded like the address of somebody's grandma. Jazz sighed and shoved the map back into the glove box.

At least she'd see Mom and Dad. They really should have mentioned how far away they'd be.

Jazz wound her way through the light, early-morning traffic of the city and hit the highway running. High-rises gave way to suburbs which dissolved into fields and low hills, the grass green and wet from the chill of the previous night. Jazz would have thought it was pretty if she wasn't so impatient. McKinley hadn't said anything about what he wanted, only that he needed her to come down right away. Something about Alex, so she gathered, though naturally he hadn't told her exactly what it was, which may or may not have been a pretty tactful move on his part. Truth be told, Jazz was very, very nervous about Alex. Danny wasn't with her this time, and Alex had been acting so strangely last time...

Doubts needled at her for another hour or so. Once she nearly pulled off the road. Finally, Jazz stopped at a gas station, bought herself some much-needed coffee, and resumed the rest of her trip with the questionably comforting help of the radio. Unfortunately, good music and clever programming had apparently been outlawed in whatever county she was currently passing through, but nevertheless, the nasally talk shows and badly-sung country music did manage to stave off the willies long enough to get her into town. She took the exit with a smooth curve of her steering wheel, following the pavement until it turned into a pressed dirt road. She passed several trucks of fruit on her way into the town, which was indeed a small farming community composed of a couple dozen buildings, several gas stations, and a handful of fast food joints.

She drove through it, following another bumpy road into the bare, brush-covered hillsides until, finally, she reached a dead end at a small white kiosk. The man at the kiosk squinted at Jazz through a pair of black-rimmed sunglasses. He checked a list; Jazz tried to keep her voice steady as she told him her name and reason for coming, which she hardly knew herself. The man checked a monitor—taking a picture of her license plate, probably—before waving her on through. The yellow rail lifted silently, and Jazz slid under it. The parking lot was bounded on three sides by barbed wire, and by the sharp slope of a hill on the fourth. The lot, its hundreds of spots filled with every manner of car from Hondas to Corvettes, swept everywhere inside the fence like an ocean of black tar, brushing up against the hillside, the barbed-wire fencing, and the only building in sight. The building looked like a warehouse, and it stuck out like a big white boxy zit from the hillside. It gave Jazz the creeps.

As she found a spot and parked, Jazz couldn't help feeling that the relatively humble facility before her was far more impressive than it appeared. The way the hill sloped was odd, for one thing. It rose up straight from the parking lot; the long grass and prickled brush she'd seen on the surrounding hills had here been laid bare and dry, scraped away deliberately to slope so sharply. Not sharp enough for landslides, but sharp enough for something else.

Like an underground base. The building came right up against the hillside. As Jazz walked closer, the patter of her shoes clicking disconsolately in the dry climate, she could see that the humble factory had actually been built right into the hillside. Its four or five floors rose up from a discreet glass-paned entrance and swept directly back into the earth. With its rough, cream-colored paint and lack of any decoration save for a green stripe running along the first floor, the building really did look like some kind of geological blemish.

Jazz gulped, hesitating at the glass-paned door. At the rear of the reception room sat a tidy desk and a bored secretary. A gray carpet, wooden walls, a couple chairs made up the unremarkable reception room, but behind its wood panels Jazz saw visions of twisting chrome stairwells and white-masked men working on things glowing green and flashing with power. She saw Alex suspended in some huge green tank like a goldfish, wires running in and out of his head in a room vaulted so high that the ceiling disappeared in the darkness up above, banks upon banks of computers towering over everything… And Alex in the center, those freakish brown eyes wide open and centered on her.

"That's ridiculous," she muttered. "I'll be fine." She wasn't about to turn around and suffer six more hours of hillbilly music, and besides, Jazz was doing this for Danny. She shoved open the door and pushed past the cool rush of air, strode up to the desk and announced herself, trying to sound as if she knew what she were doing.

The secretary frowned. "McKinley, eh?" She looked out at Jazz from under her brown bangs, pausing in her nail care.

"Yes. He called me in Amity, and I've been driving a while, so I'd really like to see him quickly." She put her hands in her pockets. "If, you know, that's possible."

"Don't worry." She smirked at Jazz. "The Grouch has been waiting for you." The secretary made a note, shuffled some papers, and pressed an intercom switch. "Your little Miss Fenton is here."

The intercom scratched irritably. The weary voice on the other end sighed, the speaker crackling as the breath of air touched it. "Just because you have a job today doesn't mean you'll have one tomorrow."

The secretary took her hand off the button and grinned. "McKinley's been trying to fire me for years. Johnson won't let him."

"Johnson…?"

"Director of the FBI."

"Oh."

"I'm his cousin."

Jazz had to laugh at that. "I see." She decided she liked the secretary. "Do you know anything about what's been happening here? This place is…"

"Creepy?"

"Exactly."

"I just know what they tell me." She raised a brow as she inspected her right hand, the red gloss shining wetly back at her. "The engineers come out muttering sometimes." Catching Jazz's alarmed look, she waved her hand. "No, don't worry. They're not nearly as strange as the architecture. Pretty friendly, most of the time. Cute too, some of them."

"So, what do they tell you? Do they say anything about what's going up on there?" Jazz gestured vaguely at the space above her head, encompassing the ceiling, the mountain, the entire strange-looking complex.

The secretary shrugged. "Not much. That the world is ending."

"They're exaggerating, of course." Jazz turned to see McKinley standing at the entrance to a hallway leading off from the room. He gave his secretary a dirty look. "Things are going fine, and don't you forget to tell that to the yokels around here."

She rolled her eyes at him and winked at Jazz. "Good luck."

McKinley shook his finger at the secretary. "We're going to have a talk as soon as I get a free minute."

"Which will be never."

He gave up the spat, issuing a properly disapproving look for the staunchly good-humored secretary before addressing the noncombatant. "Are you ready?"

Fingering the strap of her purse, Jazz answered in the affirmative. She was ready for something, just not an encounter with a homicidal maniac. She wished she'd brought a camera, not that they would have allowed it.

She followed McKinley along the hallway, matching his long stride with her own hurried, nervous one. They moved through the long, white-painted hallway, the walls lined with cabinets of vials and chalkboards with hastily scrawled equations that were inscrutable to Jazz. The ceiling was marked by unusual devices every here and there. They were stationed periodically throughout the place, some of them smooth half-spheres bulging from the ceiling, others more spidery and portentous.

"Protection." Jazz looked up at McKinley. He nodded at one of the devices as they passed beneath it. "Ghosts, you know. A laboratory with contaminated samples is useless. Most of these on the ceiling are only designed for monitoring, but we do have a couple defensive robots."

"Oh." Jazz didn't care much what they were. The things were strange.

McKinley continued as they passed doors and offices, some with windows. Others without. "The entire facility is built into Foxtread Mountain. The bland front keeps most of the locals away, and the mountain itself houses most of our critical experiments."

"Including Alex?"

McKinley glanced at her, something nervous in his eyes, but whatever it was disappeared an instant later. "Yes."

Jazz didn't remember him being this stringent back at the crater.

They kept walking, and suddenly the windows to the outside disappeared. The air acquired a sharp, sterilized aroma as they entered a more expansive part of the complex, the part beneath the mountain, Jazz guessed.. Machinery hummed, sometimes distant, sometimes roaring close by. Feet clicked on white linoleum and the dampened sound raced through the criss-crossing hallways to reach distant ears. The place echoed with the sounds of industry, but the halls were mostly empty. Looking in the small, square windows of the wooden laboratory doors, Jazz caught glimpses of scientists at their cluttered workstations.

As Jazz walked through the hallway, peering in on original research in a legitimate scientific facility, she couldn't help but think that maybe her parents weren't so eccentric after all. Here their work continued, the subject of ghosts turned from a quaint fascination into a serious, federally-funded, scientific enterprise. If it weren't for the fact that lives might possibly be at stake, she would have been thrilled. As it was, the novelty only made her more uncomfortable, more out of her element. But still, the discoveries these people must be making and the research they must be doing… Jazz remembered what she had learned of psychology's own beginnings, Freud and Jung and Pavlov's bells, the days when nobody had any clear idea of what was going on and all they had to go on was their own ingenuity. She had never thought of her parents as modern visionaries, but from the looks of things around here, that was exactly what they were. Hopefully McKinley would let her see their lab.

"Here we are." McKinley had stopped at an office, his own name on the door. He pushed it open—no locks, Jazz observed—and offered her a seat in front of a wide desk, littered with papers with graphs and printouts. A computer squatted on one corner, and a small brass plaque on the other. The walls were lined with bookshelves or else covered by posters with pictures of inscrutable charts and tables of data. It was a messy office, but in an orderly, productive kind of way.

McKinley sighed back in his cushy chair as Jazz took her own, a comfortable armchair in front of the desk. He swept aside some papers and steepled his fingers. "First of all, thank you very much for coming. I realize this is very short notice, but I can assure that we appreciate it. You'll be duly compensated."

Jazz wondered if she should be worried. "I'm sorry. Compensated for what?"

"Well… If you agree, of course, we'd like your opinion on Alex."

"I kind of figured that. But what happened? You call me up at five in the morning because you want my opinion in person?" Jazz shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense. Something must have happened, and you tell me what, or I'm going right back to my car."

McKinley looked over her shoulder for a moment. Jazz folded her hands uncomfortably, waiting. "Not something that happened. Something we learned." His gaze wandered for a few minutes, almost nostalgically, before his attention snapped back to Jazz. "Would you like to meet some of the scientists who have been working on him?"

"Um, okay. But I still want to know what's going on."

A moment later found them both out in the hallways again. Jazz decided that she definitely should be worried. All this milling around… McKinley had been much more diplomatic back in the crater; she was certain of that. Something was wrong here just the same way as things were wrong back at Casper High. What had the engineers told the secretary? That the world was ending?

They reached another door, a lab this time. Jazz peered through the window the instant before McKinley turned the handle, and to her relief she saw two ordinary men. No ghosts; no Alex. They looked up from their computers as the door swung open, and McKinley ushered her inside.

What followed was a crash course in physics, ectoplasmic dynamics, and spirituality.

The scientists, after discovering that she wasn't half the ghost-hunter her parents were, had to lay her some groundwork. The world, they said, was basically divided into three basic elements. Ectoplasmic substances, ordinary matter and energy, and a soul. The first two were not supposed to be able to interact without the influence of either a soul or a clever man-made instrument, but Alex had found some way around that rule. That was their central problem. How had Alex changed that rule? Jazz asked what they meant. The scientists said they'd get to that.

Green Bay had been burned by an electromagnetic blast generated by the process of the mysterious sphere's creation back at the crater, and people were acting abnormally because the same process that created the sphere and the blast also initiated the growth of a kind of atomic rot, ectoplasmic in nature, which affected everyone and everything, and that rot was the reason people were given to abnormally negative behavior. Jazz made them repeat that one several times before she got it, but with a heroic amount of open-mindedness, she managed it.

The electromagnetic blast, which was basically a typical lighting-storm multiplied by a million, screwed up the electronics in Green bay and the surrounding area. The broken electronics caused electrical fires, which caused Green Bay to burn to the ground. Check.

The blast was a result of the sphere being created, presumably by some kind of tear in space. The technicians thought the sphere might be some kind of portal, a wormhole or the like, but they honestly weren't sure. Sphere: sorta-check.

The atomic rot, they'd said, was a progressive 'moldering' of all matter. Ordinary matter, under the influence of the mysterious rot, was either dissolving into or producing 'this weird black stuff,' similar to what Alex used to manipulate back before the crater incident.

Jazz caught the 'used to' in that bit. "So, you're saying Alex doesn't have the… blackness powers any more? That this rot is something completely different?"

The scientist chewed his pen. "More or less. The rot is ectoplasmic—ghostly—in nature, and it likes to cluster around people. We suspect that Alex may be able to influence the way the rot clusters and moves, but he probably doesn't have much direct control over it at all." The rot was far more sedentary than Alex's former darkness. It was the difference between a fungus and a predatory animal, they explained. Like a fungus, the rot grew where it could. (Currently, 'where it could' included anything with mass, but it seemed to like living organisms the best.) The other stuff, like an animal, had been a single entity and had, through Alex, exercised a will to actually seek out victims one by one.

Maybe ectoplasmic research was legitimate, but that didn't make it any easier for her to understand. Or accept. Jazz struggled for a moment to find the right question to ask. She had to think like a scientist. Assume their explanations were true, then try to understand them. Get things as clear as possible. "Okay, so the world is dissolving. How's that affect us people?"

"Well, the ectoplasmic component of the rot is making people more irritable, for one thing. As the rot gets worse, so does everybody's attitude. The FBI has been very busy, lately."

"Why?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It doesn't fit in with the rest of this. I can understand how the rest of it would happen, but what's the rot doing here?"

"Right now, we don't know what purpose the rot would serve. Things are getting progressively worse, so maybe some kind of breaking point is coming." The scientist shrugged. "We just don't know."

Jazz rubbed her temples, wishing she were back at school dealing with troubled students. "You know, you're kind of stupid for a professional."

"Oh, excuse me. Maybe I should let you analyze sixteen terabytes of data taken in a scientific field that's virtually nonexistent."

Jazz listened to him explain the rest of it. Apparently the Ghost Portal hadn't worked because there wasn't exactly a Ghost Zone anymore. That was another nifty little thing the explosion had done. The sphere had sucked everything out of the Ghost Zone and put it somewhere else.

"Where?"

"We don't know, but we think the rot has something to do with it. The energy and ectoplasm from the Ghost Zone got downconverted into reality and emerged as the rot, perhaps."

That wasn't the most exciting part, though. The most _exciting _part was where they thought they could get her to talk to a certain somebody.

"No."

"He won't do anything but swear at us, and he's not half as dangerous as he used to be."

"Absolutely not. Do my parents know about this?"

"Yes."

"That figures," Jazz grumbled.

"Will you do it?"

She took a breath, sweeping back her hair and wondering if there would ever come a day when she would wake up and realize this whole fantastic mess had been, after all, just a crazy dream. She really, truly hoped there would. "Yes."

She wondered if the rot had been affecting her.

The scientist smiled. "We appreciate it."

XXX

A few moments later, Jazz found herself walking down the hallway in the company of McKinley once more. "I need some time to think about this."

"We don't have a lot of that. Time, you know."

"Yes I know, but I need some time to think about my approach. Alex isn't exactly a disgruntled freshman." And Jazz wasn't going near him without some kind of strategy in hand.

McKinley looked away, mind wandering, attention disconnecting. Like back in the office. "No. Not exactly…"

Jazz caught it like a red flag, this time. "You're not telling me something."

McKinley turned to her, looking every year of his age. "No, I'm not… I was planning on telling you before you went in, though."

"When? Five seconds beforehand?" Jazz couldn't believe this. "I don't know what your problem is, but if you want me to help you then you need to tell me what's going on! I have to graduate and go to college and win a Nobel Prize, and I'm not going to die just because you got squirrelly with the details." Even as she spoke, flustered and angry, something occurred to her. Jazz didn't trust it, because she'd had too much coffee and too little sleep to trust any of her instincts at this point, but she had a feeling that Alex wouldn't actually hurt her.

McKinley hadn't been following her train of thought. The director wiped his brow and pulled a paper out of his pocket. "I'll tell you. I managed to run a search on Alex, just on the off-chance that he actually was alive at one point…"

"You're kidding. You really have honestly got to be kidding me."

McKinley nodded. "We found him in the databanks early this morning. A body was never recovered, but he lived around here, back in the 1930s. He attended high school, got bad grades. He never held a job. He finished two years at a junior college… And disappeared."

McKinley still wasn't telling her everything. Jazz gritted her teeth. "And then what happened."

"Well, on the first day of the following school year, somebody made a, ah, visit, and everybody present at Alex's old high school that day—that's to say, most of the student body—ended up in a coma. None of them ever woke up from it." McKinley put the paper back in his pocket and pushed up his glasses.

Jazz shook her head. "This is too much. This is insane. This is just, absolutely…" She growled, holding her head in her hands. Her brains were trying to explode out her ears. "Who ARE you people? Why do you all just sit on things like this and leave it up to me and MY LITTLE BROTHER to fix! Aren't you supposed to be, oh, I don't know, _professionals_ or something? All these things are happening and you 'just don't know'… And now you want _me_ to…"

Jazz wiped at her eyes. "Look, I'm sorry. I swear I'm not usually this nervy, and I know everybody's under pressure, but do you guys understand what you're asking of me? Of my entire family, involving us in this?" She raised her eyes to him. Did he understand?

McKinley seemed only halfway in the world, the rest of him buried in some other, faraway dimension. He looked at her with pity and sadness and understanding, a depthless understanding that Jazz never would have hoped to elicit. "Yes. I do."

Jazz stifled a sob. Everything felt so strange, but somehow everybody—her parents, Danny, the kids at the school and even McKinley, she now realized—had been thrown into the strangeness together. And in some vague yet completely accurate way, McKinley understood this.

He smiled sadly. "It's always the Gifted that have to give up their gifts, isn't it?"

Jazz never figured out why he said that, what prompted McKinley to remark on something that had nothing to do with ghosts or danger or anything at all really, but at the time it seemed like the single grand explanation and justification for everything that was happening to her. Part of a web, part of a net, part of a huge descending something that made her feel _needed_. The phrase wound behind the curtains and nipped at a cosmic specter that might, someday, be a real explanation. Jazz felt ready and able to do some Good Work, for better or for worse.

"I'll need a quiet room, a clipboard, and a whole lot of lined binder paper. I want a chair for when I talk to Alex but I need some time to do preliminary stuff beforehand."

McKinley bent his head, more of a small bow than a nod. "You'll have all of it."

Jazz studied over what she knew of Alex. She compared his past attitude with his present one, set up a strategy based on that, then made the local lab assistants bring her tapes of the last time they'd brought in somebody to talk to him. What she saw made her wince. Jazz scrapped her careful strategy. Alex wasn't going to respond to anything that seemed programmed, that was certain. She spent another half hour revising her approach, looking at all the angles, covering all her bases. It took her nowhere. In the end, Jazz had learned only that any formal approach was no good, but at least that was something. The session would depend on her ability to think under pressure, which was exciting in a mortifying kind of way.

She called McKinley over the intercom and told him she was ready. She waited silently as they passed through the infrastructure once more. Jazz held tightly to her clipboard, refusing to be intimidated by the steadily increasing security of thick walls and mechanical sentinels. McKinley took her down into the earth, where machinery whispered everywhere around them and the only employees around looked busy, and frightened. He escorted her to a door wide enough to admit a truck and heavy enough to survive an explosion, bolted with big steel bolts and reinforced with huge, crisscrossing struts.

McKinley slipped a card through a keypad and pressed his palm to a screen on the wall. The door opened as McKinley punched in a code on a nearby keypad, and Jazz, feeling her knees knocking, walked as normally as she possibly could to the chair placed only several yards from of the blue-glowing bars of a cage. She sat down, the indignant stare of the creature within raising the hair on the nape of her neck.

"Hello, Alex."

* * *

A/N: This is one of those chapters that I thought was going to really suck, but which actually turned out really, shockingly, not-so-sucky. Or not as sucky as it might have been, anyway. Thanks again to my reviewers! You've all been great, picking up my points and making predictions and accurate interpretations of things. I'd get you sodas but I have no money. 


	17. Interview with a Psychopath

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 17: Interview with a Psychopath

A good many things would have made Jazz feel more comfortable than she did sitting down in that chair. Triggering a bear trap with her right arm would have been one of them. She gulped, the sour taste of fear seeping up the back of her dry throat.

Alex sat back on a cot in the shadows of the cage, away from the misty glow of the overhead lights, his features highlighted in soft blue by the crackling bars. His wide-open eyes gleamed out at her, and he hunched forward slightly, hands resting on the cot on either side of him, legs bent forward, one foot an inch or two of the other. The stance belied the attitude. He sat on the cot but he wasn't resting on it; he didn't seem to feel either the mattress under his hands or the floor under his feet. Still as stone but as alert and powerful nonetheless. Jazz didn't know what the bars were made of, but she hoped they were strong.

She gulped again, the tip of one finger picking erratically at the paper on her clipboard. She didn't know what to say, and she didn't feel it wise to ask him directly about himself. Alex clearly wasn't delirious like the last time she'd met him, and he didn't seem as sinister as the first time she'd met him. Jazz cursed her perfectionism. She had to stop second-guessing herself and say _something_. As she scrounged for a good ice-breaker her attention wandered, out of curiosity and desperation, to his eyes. Those eyes... not black, but mesmerizing...

Mentally, Jazz slapped herself. Think. He didn't have the blackness junk anymore. What did that leave? It left whatever had been there before he caught his incredibly inconvenient little disease. What had been there before, exactly? Who knew. Alex could have been a closet serial killer in his human years for all Jazz could tell. The way he was staring at her, not blinking, just watching—she wouldn't put it past him. She doubted he even had a mind left to analyze. McKinley had wasted her time.

"Jazz."

She jumped at the mention of her name. Alex stared at her; one eyebrow went up. "Jazz, right?"

Jazz gripped her clipboard. "Yes."

Alex almost smiled at that. "Good. What are you doing here?"

"McKinley wanted me to--" Jazz stopped herself. Good grief, she'd nearly told him.

"To see what could be sucked out of me?" Embarrassed, Jazz nodded. "Tough luck." Alex tapped his head, smirking in an extremely unsettling way. "Not a whole lot left upstairs, you see."

"Why?"

Alex frowned. "Why what?"

"Why is there nothing left?" She hoped she didn't sound as pathetic as she felt. It was frustrating. Usually she was so much more tactful than this. "What happened? What did you do at the crater?"

Alex harrumphed and resettled himself on the cot. His eyes moved slowly over Jazz, but his attention had clearly gone elsewhere. At length he sat up again, apparently coming to some kind of decision. "Tell me. What do you hate most about the blackness?"

"What is there to like about it? It basically kills people."

"Yes, that's what it does. This new stuff is particularly irritating, slinking around like raw sewage. I don't even like it, if you can believe that. But I didn't ask about it, I asked about you." He half-smiled at her, watching her squirm.

"Why should I tell you how I feel about anything?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't know. I can always start swearing at you."

Jazz ran a hand through her hair. She had no idea what she was going to tell him, what bone she was going to throw so that he would lock her out. Alex waited, patiently, watching as she collected her thoughts. "I don't like what it's doing to the school, first of all." Jazz frowned at the floor. "I don't... oh..." She racked her brain, coming up with a grand total of zilch, when suddenly something hit her like a freight train. She didn't know if it was _the _answer, but it was definitely, surely, _her_ answer.

"I don't like what it's doing to the smart kids," she began. "A lot of the normal students are having trouble, too, and that's horrible—because nobody deserves what that stuff is doing—but kids with perfect grades are staining their permanent records under the influence of this stuff." She bit her lip. "Too many of the clever ones are already mentally unstable for the student body to afford any more losses. This is... this is just making things worse for them." She sighed, grimacing at the tiled floor. If Alex could understand any of that, she'd consider it a miracle.

"And why should you be concerned about this?" hissed Alex softly. Suggestively.

"Because I don't want to see smart kids fail. It's a waste and a crime, and it's not right." She looked up. Her inquisitor seemed very, very interested. Alex was intensely focused on something over her shoulder, his poise similar to when she'd first walked in. He caught her watching him and snapped out of it.

He took a breath and relaxed. "Now I'll answer your question."

"Thanks."

"I don't know quite what caused the crater, but I know how the portal was made."

Jazz looked up. "You mean you didn't make it?"

"No," he grumbled. "I didn't even know I was capable of it until that blackness... intervened."

"What do you mean?" Jazz got her clipboard ready.

Alex thought for a moment. "Have you ever noticed, say when you get too little sleep, or get knocked on the head, how you start to feel a little dumber than usual?"

"Kind of. What about it?"

"I've been that way ever since I can remember. In my... less lucid days, that thing took up a lot of space in my head, and I think it was building something." He checked her for a sign of ridicule, but Jazz motioned for him to continue. "It used my natural intelligence and built something with it. It must have taken some time, but I was never aware of it until my sentient blackness used it to open that portal. Oh, and the portal is going to let in something else that will kill everything, then destroy the universe, by the way." Alex tossed the last part in as an afterthought, running his tongue over his teeth. "That, really and truly, is the extent of my knowledge."

Jazz rested her chin on her fist, supporting her elbow on the clipboard. "You know, that is honestly the weirdest thing anybody has ever said to me."

Alex chuckled. "Try living it."

"Do you know when that stuff is supposed to happen?"

"Soon," he replied, tasting the word.

"And you don't regret it?"

"What a stupid question. Of course I don't."

"Mm." Jazz shuffled through her papers, looking at the notes she'd taken. She could believe him, but all this was definitely testing the limits of her open-mindedness. "Well, thanks for talking with me, I guess."

Alex smirked. "No problem at all. See you later."

Jazz couldn't help feeling a little disconcerted at that. But as McKinley's men let her out through the heavy steel door, she knew it was probably true, if only because McKinley would want her to go back. And Jazz had to admit that she was also more than a little curious about Alex.

XXX

McKinley gripped the shoulder of the surveillance technician, the two of them watching Jazz leave the room through several security monitors. "Did you see that?"

"Yessir."

"He didn't swear at her. Not once. He didn't swear at her."

"No sir."

"When was the last time he even looked at us without exercising his filthy mouth?"

"Never, sir."

McKinley stepped away, feeling much better about things than he had been ten minutes ago.

* * *

A/N: Not too sure about the style of this, but I'm definitely happy with the content. I hope to have the next chap up sometime next week. Thanks to all reviewers! 


	18. Something Stirring

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 18: Something Stirring

Jazz let her escorts take her to the upper levels, back to McKinley's office. He looked up sharply from a written report, beaming at her. Jazz wondered where all the reports came from—underlings, probably, although you'd think these guys would be using emails.

Wherever they came from, he slid that one into a folder and turned his attention on Jazz. "That was excellent," he said. "I couldn't have hoped for a better response."

"So you can do something now?" Jazz loved praise as much as the next person, but she was dead on her feet. The adrenaline had worn out, and so had her endurance. She was about ready for a good ten hour meditative session with a warm blanket and a pillow.

"Do? Not quite. But we know a lot more. At least there's a direction for the research now."

"That's great… Can I get a bunk, or a couch or something?"

McKinley came out from his enthusiasm long enough to notice her, his face softening in sympathy. Jazz didn't even want to think about how she looked right now. "Of course. There are some living quarters on the upper floors. I might be able to arrange for a window."

He let her go after exchanging a few words with the two men leading her. They left McKinley's office and took her up an elevator and down a corridor, this one much softer than the lower research levels. The worn, carpeted floor didn't make their steps echo like the lower floors' tiling, and the paint looked older—more homey. Even her escorts seemed to relax a bit.

They handed her a key and left her at an old, wooden door with a brass knob and the number fifty-six marked in gold paint. If the interior looked as promising as the exterior, Jazz would be thrilled. And she was; the room was above motel quality. Not freakishly sterile and cold, but more like a dorm. One small bed, a flimsy desk, and a wide window with curtains which opened up an expansive view on the rough hillsides and grasslands beyond. The yellow light of the evening filtered in through the thin curtains, pooling across the thin brown carpet about midway through the room. Perfect.

Jazz stooped to remove her shoes, flexing her toes comfortably before curling up on the bed.

XXX

Something rumbled; Jazz awoke. A desk, some light, a slight chill—she sat up quickly and wondered where she was, what had happened—it all came back to her after a moment's thought. Alex, McKinley, and Danny… She had to call Danny. Check up on him, make sure everything's okay.

The noise that had awoken her sounded again, a knock on her door. She stepped across the carpet, wiping her eyes. From the fresh, chill light out the window, she guessed it to be mid-morning. Late. Jazz reached for the door, thinking at the last minute of the fact that she'd slept in her clothes. She ran her hands through her hair, hoping that if she couldn't avoid the 'lion's mane' style she might at least dodge 'electric chair.' Reaching for the knob, she pushed the door open.

Jazz grinned. "Mom!"

Maddie smiled in the doorway and accepted Jazz's leaping hug. "I am really happy to see you…"

"I'm glad to see you too." They broke away. Her mother looked more than a little worn-through. Faint half-moons of fatigue traced her eyes. "I heard about yesterday. Me and your father are so proud of you…"

The interview, Jazz remembered. "It actually wasn't such a big deal. I mean, initially it was, but Alex isn't all that he used to be."

Maddie laughed. "From what Arthur has told me, that's true enough."

She and Jack, Maddie explained, had been working mainly on the technical side of Alex. They'd only seen him once in person, and that had been several days ago, right after he was brought in. "They cited safety concerns. 'Unnecessary interactions might stimulate undesirable reactions,' was the exact wording."

"That's a pretty good reason."

Maddie shrugged. "I suppose."

XXX

As Jazz talked with her mother, Danny woke up a couple hundreds of miles away to a different kind of light. The sky outside his window had clouded over, dark and foggy. The air felt damp and cold. Danny figured it must have rained the night before. He turned over in bed and hid under the covers for a moment longer, reveling in the juvenile assumption that whatever weird things had been happening would go away if he stayed there long enough.

He got up around 8:30 that morning. Too late for school, not that there was likely to be much of a school left after yesterday's minor apocalypse. Danny showered and dressed, poured some orange juice and cereal for breakfast and thumped down on the couch. He snatched the remote off the glass coffee table, sipping his juice, and clicked on the TV.

"…recent crime wave, riots have broken out all over the United—"

He clicked it off with a sigh and glanced over at the phone. Nobody could leave him a number or anything, oh no. All the scientists plus his family h run away to some mysterious lab in Nowheresville and leave him completely out of the loop. He took another drink of his orange juice. As annoying as all that was, he considered, it could be worse. At least he didn't have to work with Alex. It would be fun to kick the crap out of that ghost, but it would hardly be useful. Besides, Danny wasn't sure he'd be comfortable being within eyeshot of Alex, much less touching him.

He finished his breakfast and dumped the dishes in the sink. They had started to pile up without Mom or Dad around. On an impulse, Danny stuck his hands in the dirty water and started loading them into the dishwasher. He might never have done it if his parents were home, but the splash of the water filled the silence of the house, at least momentarily. If he couldn't clean up the town, he might as well clean up the sink.

The hiss of water and the distraction of his hands bought him some time to reconsider things. Tucker was probably still mad. Better give him at least until this afternoon before calling. He could get in touch with Sam, but Danny had the distinct impression that he really should be doing something else. Danny had the distinct impression that something was lurking just outside his consciousness, nothing revolutionary, maybe, but definitely something that would be helpful that he could be doing. Something to do with yesterday. He flipped open the washer and slid a couple dishes onto the rack. He could hardly believe he was doing 'girly' chores voluntarily. Something really must be affecting him after all.

He remembered with a click of memory. The weird black stuff. He'd seen it before, but where and when? Recently, certainly, and the stuff hadn't been as brazen. Hadn't he been fighting the Box Ghost…?

Another click, and Danny remembered. The last of his morning drowsiness fled as a vision of warehouses and overfull garbage bins flashed to the forefront of his consciousness.

XXX

A half hour later, Jazz found herself in a meeting with her parents and McKinley. It felt good to be back among family, but the meeting bored her to tears. She had been mulling over the session for quite a while, and she was sure she could think of something on her own, but the adults just recycled all the mysticism and confusion they'd told her before. A lot of it was technical and went right over her head, but she couldn't help thinking they were approaching the problem from the wrong side. Finally, she interrupted.

"So you can't interpret the data you have and you can't get any more information, is that right?"

"That's what we've been talking about for the last half hour, yes." McKinley looked peeved. Jazz rolled her eyes. Of _course_ she'd been listening, and it bugged her to think McKinley doubted that.

"What if we tried to get Alex to react? Give him something and see what he does with it, or something like that. Maybe we could get something useful that way."

Maddie brightened. "That's a good idea, sweetie. What do you suggest?"

"Well, something he could get excited about. Something from his human days, maybe. You said he went to school, right? What were his best subjects?"

McKinley answered automatically. "Physics."

"Okay." Jazz sat back in her chair. "That makes things a lot easier. We could try magazines, a game like chess or go… Lots of things."

They all looked at her, an awkward silence ensuing. Jack sighed. "I for one feel stupid. That's the best idea we've had all week."

McKinley rolled his eyes. "Ditto."

XXX

Danny decided not to call Sam. She'd be too vulnerable, and there was no way he was letting her get taken hostage again. He filled up his scooter's gas tank and headed out into the morning, leaving the empty house to echo on its own. He buzzed past the residential and business districts, laying down a thin stench of burnt gasoline to mingle harmlessly with the grander fog of depression weighing down everyone he passed. They dragged their feet, most eyes downcast…

Don't focus on that, Danny reminded himself. Focus on the goal. I am Danny Phantom, and I am going to win because I always win. Also because Alex is a jerk, but mostly because I am brave and capable and… Scared out of my socks.

Pep-talks weren't as effective when you had to give them to yourself, especially if your self was being slowly but surely corrupted by demon slime.

He left behind the tall gray buildings of the business sector and rolled into the choppy, pot-holed roads of the warehouses. Storage sheds and old factories stood lamely on either side of the road, filled with garbage old and fresh. Danny stopped when he reached the place he guessed he'd been before. He checked around the buildings, spotting a dent in one of the cans which, he remembered, had been made by his back when the B.G. slammed him into it. This was the place alright.

Danny hung his helmet on the handlebars and zapped to ghost, checking carefully for other people beforehand. There was no need for it. The place was deserted—dead, almost. Danny's footsteps padded across the mist-shrouded street, peering in windows, wondering what to do. He didn't want to go in, but nothing was coming out. Finally, he got his nerve up enough to phase through the wall of one building and check things out.

XXX

"I brought you something." Jazz smiled, holding the items securely behind her.

Alex craned his neck, trying to look both uninterested and arrogant at once as he tried to peek around her back. "I can see that." He'd apparently decided she was worth getting up off the cot for. This time around, Alex stood nearer to the bars, pacing back and forth every once in a while, but mostly staying put. Progress, Jazz thought.

"What is it?"

She brought out the stack and walked closer to his cage to show him. "Magazines. Take a look." She slid them carefully between the bars. Alex glanced suspiciously between her and the proffered magazines, but in spite of himself, he accepted them.

Alex started noticeably as he glanced over them. "These are science magazines."

"I heard you might like them."

He looked up sharply, a stare of iron. "Really?" Frustration, borderline desperation. "From who?"

"McKinley." Jazz took a couple steps back. "He found a file on you."

She could see the question on his lips, but Alex merely shook his head and returned to the magazines, flipping through them. "Oh. String theory." He scanned the page. "That's… hum." He retreated in his cage, leaning comfortably against the back wall as he looked it over. "Hum…" Jazz waited, wondering what 'hum' meant for her.

Alex looked interested, although starved would have been closer to the truth. He flipped through the pages, enamored with the contents. Jazz gave herself a mental high-five. She'd been right on the money with this scheme, but as she watched, Alex's expression changed from wonder, to disappointment, to stone. He shook his head disdainfully and tossed the magazines back at her through the bars.

"Boring," he said.

Yeah right, Jazz thought. "I didn't think you looked bored."

"Well I was. None of it's any good any more anyway, what with the world ending and all that…"

Jazz shrugged. "That doesn't mean you can't enjoy things while they last. Maybe we'll save it."

"Hah!" Alex stepped to the front. "Not likely. You might as well control the weather by banging rocks together."

"If a butterfly flaps its wings in China—"

"Yes, I know. It affects the weather in the United States," he finished. "That's science fiction stupidity. A popular myth perpetrated by the chaos mystics. Don't take it seriously."

"My brother takes it seriously," Jazz whispered.

"Your brother," Alex said. "Is a moron."

Jazz glared at him. She shook her head and stooped to collect the magazines. "I'll be back next time with a chess board."

"I won't play." He didn't sound certain.

"What's wrong?" Jazz returned. "Are you afraid you'll enjoy it?"

Alex crossed his arms. "Actually, yes."

She rolled her eyes at him. He stuck his tongue out at her. It looked ridiculous and creepy coming from him, but on some level Jazz thought it might be a good sign. "I think you might not be as evil as you think you are."

Alex scoffed. "You're wrong about that."

"Maybe. We'll see." With that, she clicked a button on the iron door, and the guards led her back to her room.

XXX

Bodies. Stacks and stacks and _stacks_ of **bodies**. Danny yelped and pressed himself against the wall. Utter silence, foggy darkness, enough light to see sightless eyes and limp hands, deadweight masses both human and animal piled like so much meat one upon the other. The breath rushed from Danny's chest as he hugged the wall. Spread before his eyes lay Alex's stash of lifeless, hopeless, futureless victims, accumulated from years gone by. Those who, unlike Sam, hadn't had anyone to save them.

Everything screamed danger. Danger from what he didn't know, but every instinct in his mutated body told Danny to get out of there _fast_, and he would happily have obliged had he been able to convince his legs to move. Something in the pile was moving.

Moving and slinking, pooling and churning, trickling from the eyes of the dead, from the children and the raccoons and the formally-clothed businessmen, a black sewage that was all too familiar. It crept over the concrete floors, stopping at the base of one pile, accumulating…

Danny told himself to MOVE. But he couldn't.

The blackness began to rise, the pool twisting into a wide pillar, forming itself confidently, leisurely, fluidly. Tentacles rose up around it and twisted to and fro, scenting the air, reaching out, growing all the while; it nearly touched the ceiling now and had become as thick as the dumpsters outside.

Move move move move move… Danny couldn't tear his eyes from it.

The ooze turned about, getting its bearings, twisted towards its frozen roommate, still not attacking. It stared eyelessly at the horror-stricken freshman, made a final contemplative curve—and struck.

Danny moved. He shot up through the room as the blackness crashed down where he'd stood not a quarter-second ago. Danny shot into the air, terrified, trying to get a hold of himself. The stuff chased him up, rising up through the roof and reaching like a kraken, tentacles grasping for his feet, reaching for his body. It moved silently. Danny could hear nothing but his own panicked breaths.

He gasped and dodged a strike that might have killed him had it landed. Danny didn't know what to do. He couldn't think to strategize and couldn't get his balance to run; of all things he thought of Tucker. WHY hadn't he called Tucker… At least to apologize… He yelped, dodging another tentacle. The blackness curled up around him, the kraken closing in.

Danny phased intangible and blasted out of there, away from the warehouses and out over the suburbs, not looking back, dodging erratically, never flying in a straight line. At length he suspected he'd lost it and slowed, sparing a backward glance.

The blackness hovered at the edge of the warehouse district, not venturing into the outlying fields where Danny had gone. It curled pestilential in the air over the warehouse district, blanketing several square blocks. At length it calmed, descending like a fog over the buildings, disappearing back into its prostrate hosts.

Floating over the fields, the afternoon sun obscured by thick wet clouds, Danny watched it settle and retreat. He didn't move for a long time.

* * *

A/N: Firstly, I apologize for the whole 'I'm quitting' thing. I swear I thought it over for a week before announcing it. Secondly, yes, I am continuing, but I'm putting this thing on wheels. I want it done, and I want it done now. I have had the entire plot lined up in my head beginning to end since January, and I'm not cutting out any of the events. What I am doing is sacrificing the style. So, if you can stomach this chapter's crappiness, you'll be alright. If you want something better quality... well... tough. Wait for me to finish this sucker and I'll give you more 'Mars.' I will still fulfill requests, but not for quite a while.  



	19. Energizer

A/N: Read 18 again. I finished it and put up something that passes for an explanation.

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 19: Energizer

The technician glared at the view screen, its camera directed at Alex's cage. He frowned, hand hovering over the call button. McKinley had told him, and everybody else, not to call unless it was absolutely necessary. He was working on a new processing scheme for the Alex data with the biggest, most focused brains in the complex. Still…

The technician made up his mind and clicked on the intercom. It beeped mechanically for several seconds before somebody picked up. "Hello?"

"I need McKinley."

"McKinley's busy. What do you want? Is something happening up there?"

The tech shook his head. "No, but he's… agitated."

"How so?" The voice on the other end sounded concerned. "Here, McKinley wants to talk."

"Hello?" McKinley's voice.

"Hello sir," said the tech. "I'm sorry to bother you like this, but Alex has been pacing for about an hour. Ever since he woke up."

"Has he tried anything?"

"No… But it looks like he's thinking about it."

The line crackled as McKinley sighed into the receiver. "Just what we need." His voice grew faint as McKinley addressed his scientists. From what the tech could hear, they were going to back up their data and experiments. "Alright," he finished. "Just wait. I'll be right up."

XXX

Alex wondered why he hadn't tried the bars before. Obviously, because there hadn't been a reason to. All things considered, inside the cage had been much better than outside. He perused its various angles as he walked the length of the cage.

He didn't know if that had changed or not, if outside was still worse than inside. The problem was Jazz, Jazz and her blasted magazines. Alex snorted. Why should he care about some stupid research done by stupid mindless mortals? Not only was it enourmously impractical, given the chain of events in motion, but it was also enormously inconvenient. The world was going to blow up. Who cared how it worked anymore? He didn't even know why the science mattered to him, although it had felt good to be thinking again, trying to process pure scientific data instead of just stewing in his own self-pity. He'd liked the taste of it on his mental palate, the rigorous logic that seemed too familiar…

Of course he'd already decided to destroy the world, and no filthy magazines would change that. The blackness never would have left him if he hadn't started the doom ball rolling. Better to die without knowing what he might have missed than to learn moments before the end.

That stupid girl. Alex wasn't going to put up with it.

He quit his pacing and strode up to the 'bars,' the glowing blue bolts of what might have been electricity, each one about as thick as a child's wrist. Alex braced himself, and reached out to touch one.

XXX

McKinley shoved the slack-jawed tech from the intercom and banged the thing on, calling for guards.

XXX

It did shock him, but it was a tolerable kind of sting, like a continuous jolt of static electricity. Definitely unpleasant, but not unmanageable in the slightest. It made a funny kind of tingle in his mind, too. He spread his arm out, several more bars drilling into his skin. Alex breathed in sharply and squeezed his eyes shut, but the pain faded quickly to a mildly euphoric sting. After a minute, he could hardly feel anything, except that tingle getting stronger. Alex bathed in it, sucking up the energy before stepping out, searching out the tingle. Maybe he could do something with it…?

Like blast those damn vents. They were trying to put him out again, just like they did before experiments. The stuff was odorless, but Alex could sense it now that he was a little stronger than before. Alex followed his intuition up to a small round pipe in the corner of the ceiling. He prepped whatever power the bars had given him and, after a careful aim, sent a bolt of azure lighting to the corner. The wall at that end crumbled, showering the tiled floor with rubble and exposing the guts of the ceiling. Alex flexed his fingers, more than a little pleased.

Something hissed across the room. The blast doors disgorged two bodies arrayed in every kind of armor imaginable, but they were still just humans after him with guns. Alex prepped another bolt. They were shouting, not shooting. They had huge cannons, so why weren't they shooting him? Oh yes, Alex remembered. He was the local gerbil.

Alex built another charge and zapped them. It didn't go through the armor, but by the time the two had regained their balance Alex had yanked their knives from their belts and slit their necks open. The blood sprayed all over the place, one initial burst and then a creeping pool that spread across the floor beneath their bodies. Alex's eyes gleamed. Maybe it wasn't science, but that had sure felt good.

And he'd like to do some more of it, but first he had to get out of this room. He could go through the hole in the ceiling, or he could take down the reinforced door.

"He can't get up through the ceiling." A scientist laughed. The pertinent personnel had gathered in the control room, several floors above and to the side of Alex's. "We've got the ectobarrier, even with the ceiling out."

Somebody had spread blueprints over the conference table. "Well, those bars didn't stop him, so I wouldn't put much stop in the barrier. At least the door should be safe. That thing was designed to last."

"Good," said McKinley. "But let's be quick about a plan, people."

The door would be much more fun, but first a recharge. The only functional device in the room was his former cage, so Alex went back to that, reaching up to plug his fingers in the energy bar outlets. Even after that he didn't have enough. Maybe enough to fry the world's largest cow, but nothing close to what was necessary for him. Alex growled and kicked one of the guards' limp bodies. He registered a noticeable spike in the stored energy, and started to get an idea.

If he didn't have enough, maybe he could make enough. Alex started to play with the energy, searching for the right cycle.

Back when he'd had the black stuff, Alex had learned certain tricks that let him control it, manipulate it to an extent. A lot of it was just instinct, seat-of-the-pants kind of stuff. Nobody thinks about how their brain tells their feet to walk. Then again, some of the control had been conscious. Certain cycles, particularly centrifugal ones created through mental imagery, could double or triple output. Alex could tell that this electro-ecto-stuff didn't have half the malleability of the darkness, but he could work with it nonetheless. He just had to focus. Focus, focus, focus…

Ah. There he had it.

XXX

A thundering explosion rocked the control room and sent several ill-supported technicians flying. "What was that?" McKinley demanded.

"The doors are gone." The speaker didn't sound like he could believe it. "Alex just blew up the blast doors."

McKinley rested a hand on his forehead. "Details."

A technician tapped at the keyboard. "Umm… well the door was designed to withstand nuclear blasts, 'bout five megatons…" The tech scanned a computer screen. "And that explosion released quite a bit of energy."

"How much."

"The sensors overloaded in the immediate area, but a couple hallways over we're reading gamma radiation." He shook his head. "I've never seen that kind of precision."

Jazz had been standing in the midst of them, mostly staying out of the way. McKinley had called her and her parents and the rest of the critical personnel up to this room, and she had been staying quiet for the most part. Now, she had something to get straight. "Would I be wrong in thinking that gamma radiation means nuclear energy?"

"I don't know about you people, but I'm having a remarkably bad day," McKinley muttered.

Jazz shot him a worried look.

XXX

Alex raced through the hallways, the wind sweeping at his cheeks, his feet beating a confident, purposeful rhythm in the hall. He felt amazing, just like the good old days when he could kill a few hundred without batting an eyelash. Screw self-pity.

He skidded to a stop when a team of men rushed about a corner up ahead, all armed with plasma cannons. His lips curled in a sneer.

The group skidded to a halt as they spotted him and the leader the troupe ordered them to fire. The five men loosed a combined shot that would have killed just about anything, human or ghost. They flipped up their visors and squinted into the glow, waiting for it to dissipate, but it didn't dissipate. It rose into the air and grew brighter.

The commander shouted retreat as their own energy augmented energy zapped back to them, striking their bodies with a sound like splintering glass and blowing the hallway apart.

XXX

He's going to kill everybody, Jazz thought. Apparently McKinley thought so too, because he was giving everyone directions to an escape tunnel. It led away from the main complex, through the ground, and up to a stairwell and elevator shaft. "The elevator opens directly into the stairwell through several side panels. If the power goes, you can still get out. Beyond that is a helicopter pad, and the pilot should already be up there."

Jazz followed the other scientists, most looking as though they had just jumped out of bed. Eyes were glazed, motions uncertain. Jazz spotted her mother at the opposite end of the room, adjusting the equipment on her suit.

"Mom! We've got to go." She tugged at the suit sleeve. "Everybody's getting out of here."

"I'm staying." Maddie perused the short, metal pole one more time before sliding it into her boot.

"But—"

"Jazz, honey, where is the first place Alex is likely to go once he gets out?"

A light went on for Jazz, but she didn't think that Alex visiting their house could be any worse than her mother facing him alone. Maddie bent down and rested her hands on her daughter's shoulders. "You have to go now." She turned Jazz toward the others. "Go."

Jazz took a couple steps forward, turning to look back. But her mother had already gone.

XXX

Alex wanted another knife. He struck out for the break room, racing along the hallways, checking all the doors. All empty, the work of those cameras on the ceiling. It didn't matter. He could hear their echoing movements, see their activity from the queer movements of the cameras, feel the fear-stricken beating of their hearts through a medium of the blackness, a medium growing denser all the time. Living terror blanketed the empty hallways like a blanket. Alex shoved open one door colored differently from the others.

Bingo—the break room. He pushed through the door and extracted a serrated bread-knife roughly eight inches long, its large teeth quite well suited for tearing. Should produce a most satisfactory shower of blood, too. Neck-breaking was alright, but Alex liked to see red.

He practiced around the room, weaving and dodging experimentally. Such a relief! Before he'd had to depend on that black crap for his fun, but now he had the use of his _own two hands_…

And here came somebody to test their skills. Alex slunk back against the doorway, out of sight, ready to pounce on the owner of the feet clattering toward him. A flash of blue showed itself and he leaped out with a shout, but somebody must have warned this one. She caught his arm in the motion of stabbing and flipped him over her head, onto his back. Alex phased through the floor as she moved to stab him with a bright green staff.

He laughed to himself and darted out of the way as the staff followed him through. She'd be able to see him with those red goggles, and that staff must hurt quite a bit—not that he'd mind the pain. Actually, the prospect of a challenge kind of appealed to him. Alex dug into his brain, past the analytical and the emotional all the way to the sensory reactives, and set them on full throttle. He closed his eyes, feeling his own flesh and blood and tuning himself to everything, the cold floor, the breathless air, the sticky rubber handle of the bread knife and the tiny squeak of the woman's shoes as she moved to strike again.

Alex rolled up and out of the floor, stood, and grasped the harmless midpoint handle of the staff, accompanying the motion with an attempted stab to her gut. She grunted and blocked him, kicked his knife-bearing hand clear and shoving him down with the handle of the staff. Alex rolled with the motion, bringing her down on top of him and flipping her over his head. The movement wrenched the staff from her hands and left it in Alex's. Without missing a beat he jumped up and stuck her through the chest with it.

The woman froze on the floor, but only long enough for them both to realize, one with academic relief, the other with mild curiosity, that the device did not affect normal humans. "Hm," said Alex.

The woman grinned at him and leaped up again. Alex crushed the handle in his hands, the double-beamed staff fizzling into nothing, and struck forward with the knife. She blocked him, but Alex had planned something else this time. While she focused on the knife, he slammed his shoe against her shin. She grimaced but recovered quickly, executing something too fast for Alex to see but which leaving him several yards away, on the floor. He jumped up and went right back at her, knife clutched in one hand.

Alex had sifted into a world of pure reaction. He registered each dodge and punch, what few managed to find targets on either side, with a kind of detached wonderment. He could feel his wonderful mind churning and humming, calculating a thousand little subconscious movements and building them into attacks, defenses, and escapes. Doubt evaporated into will and ability, distraction into nothing save action. Alex loved it. He didn't want it to end, but he could tell the woman was getting desperate, and she was an excellent player at the fighting game, too. If he didn't kill her, she would certainly get him.

His moment arrived when she stumbled. A slight unbalance, but it was all he needed. In a moment he had her on her back, on the floor, with his knife at her throat.

He could almost feel her pulse through the knife, her chest heaving, a dampness of sweat shining on her cheeks. Alex pressed with the knife, drawing blood. It seemed a pity to kill something so skilled, but it couldn't be helped. However, at the least he should see who it was. Alex reached out and wrenched off the teal hood.

He froze. Red hair, green eyes… His mood changed in an instant. Now this was a matter of principle. He really did have to kill this one. The knife trembled in his grip; the woman's eyes shifted between him and the instrument, wincing from the pain but still attentive, ready to throw him off the moment he slackened. How dare she hope for such a thing.

Alex's knuckles turned white. He screwed up his face and tried to make him press down—that's all it would take, just a little more pressure or even a slip to the side…

"Damnit." He twitched the knife lower and took a good-sized chunk out of her collarbone. "Damnit!"

By the time Maddie had the will to look again, all that remained was a bloody knife on the white-tiled floor beside her.

XXX

McKinley shook his head. "There he goes. Right back to Amity."

Jazz looked, peering out the window of the helicopter. A green streak raced over the farmlands and disappeared in the distance. "I wonder if my mother is alright…"

McKinley, seated across from her, turned away from his own window. "Your mother is probably the only reason he didn't blow the whole place sky high. And with his abilities and our power loads, he could have done it extremely easily." McKinley radioed in to the base, verifying that nothing further was happening below, then ordered the copter back to the labs. He shook his head, clasping his hands in his lap. "I apologize for all this, Jazz. I think I've asked quite enough of your family." He cut her protests short with a wave. "Go back to Amity and keep Danny out of trouble." McKinley, Jazz thought, looked every one of his years, about ready to collapse, and she had a terrible sinking feeling that the rest of the world wouldn't be far behind him.


	20. Two of Us

A/N: Woah. So you guys still like this thing? Awesome! Hugs and cookies (and another doomful chapter) for everybody!

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 20: Two of Us

Danny took the long way back to town. He drifted along the outskirts of the city, passing over the fields and away from the warehouse district until he hit the suburbs. Their clean lawns and reputation for mildness had obviously become purely superficial. People wandered the streets below, and thick clouds of smoke billowed up from four or five scattered pastel hoses. The black clouds stood out darkly against the clouded blue of the twilight sky, but Danny didn't see any help or fire trucks. He definitely felt that things weren't as they should be.

"What else is new," he muttered to the air.

He passed them over and landed a couple blocks into the city, changing to human in an alleyway. Hopefully somebody could give him directions, though he'd be careful who he asked. Ordinarily he wouldn't have gotten lost, but that thing had shaken him badly.

"Excuse me," he called to a passer by. "Can you tell me how to get to the Fenton Works?" His house was a local landmark, and this person looked like a native.

The person turned, a man wrapped in a thick wool coat. His face was sunken behind the high collars and tipped hat. The eyes wandered for a moment. "Ah, the Fenton Works…" Danny had begun to think that he should have asked at a gas station, or something. "It's uh, just over…" The man waved vaguely to the north.

"Oh. Thanks." That wasn't great, but it was a direction. It shouldn't be a problem to find, flying, and besides this guy was creeping him out. Before Danny could turn away, the man stopped him.

"Hey, wait a minute…" Glinting eyes searched his face. "You're their boy, aren't you? Their son?"

Uh-oh.

"Aren't your parents supposed to protect us, boy?"

"Um…"

"You know my daughter was killed the other day!" The man seized his collar. "Killed!" He shook Danny. "Some ghost stuff, black, it was, came in and sucked out her soul!"

Danny raised his hands, clammy with sweat, and tried to pry himself free, but for the second time that day, the cat had his tongue.

"Killed!" screamed the maniac. Danny managed to duck out of the way before the punch landed. Aimed for his nose, it struck his shoulder instead. Danny struggled for his balance and bolted.

"It's the Fenton boy!" Even as he ran, Danny saw faces shoot up at him from all over the street, even those in the shops. Faces twisted in something impossibly malevolent. "Get him!"

And get him they did, if only for the sake of having someone to target and destroy for their globally bad moods.

XXX

"Sam, it's Danny! Open up!"

Sam heard the pounding from upstairs in her room. The noise startled her; both her parents had gone on business. She jumped out of her chair and clattered down the stairs to the doorway, checking through the peephole.

"Danny!" She clicked open the lock and flung open the door. He stumbled in and shoved the door closed behind him, locking it and checking through the peephole. He looked like he'd been in a fight with something that meant business. "Danny?"

He put his back to the door, breathing hard, checking the peephole again. His shirt was torn and his pants were muddy, and his face shone purple in several choice places. He finally looked up at her when she touched his shoulder. "Danny, what happened?"

She finally caught his eyes. Danny clenched his teeth and took her arm. "Listen, do you have a panic room, or something that'll—"

"This way." Sam didn't question him, not right now. She hurried down the stairs and into the entertainment basement, stepping down a stairwell one more floor into the true bowels of her mansion. Dust lay over boxes and pipes curled in every direction. The air moved sluggishly, stale and cold. She led him to the back and punched in a code on a wall panel, opening a heavy door to her immediate left. Danny darted in and motioned for her to follow. She did, shutting the door behind her. The soft, florescent light on the ceiling clicked on, bathing them both in something like safety.

Danny stood in the center, uncertain. He jumped when Sam touched his shoulder. "Sit." He did. Sam slid down next to him, the two of them leaning against the cold, steel wall. "Tell me."

Danny shook his head. "That stuff… and the people—I mean I lost them, or I think I lost them…" He bit his lip and almost stood up again, but Sam kept him down, gently pressing his shoulder.

"From the beginning." She didn't feel half as calm as she spoke, but if Danny broke down…

He squeezed his eyes shut, drooping his head and then leaning it back against the wall. His hands relaxed; his eyes opened. "I went to check out these old buildings me and Tucker found earlier this… no, last week." He glanced at Sam, his expression pained. "The bodies… Alex was busy. I mean, before he found you, or us, or…" He waved the matter away. "The blackness is, uh, motive, or something. I don't know. It chased me." He imitated the snaking, curling motion with his arm. "I got back to the city, and the people didn't think any better of me than that thing did." He rested his head in his arms. "I'm sorry. It's hard to explain."

"It'll be okay." Sam sighed and shook her head. "I have no idea how it will be okay, but it will." She looked at him. "We have to trust that."

Danny met her eyes and shook his head. "I don't think so, Sam. Not this time."

"We'll find some way to—"

"No we won't!" He turned to face her, grabbing her arms and shaking her. "You don't get it! This isn't like all those other times. There's nothing I can fight. Everybody's after me: they don't know why, I don't know why. Everybody's after each other. It's that black stuff, Sam, and it's creeping out of the woodwork! _It's become a part of this whole horrible world!_" Her arms fell limp in his hands. Sam couldn't help the tears, couldn't help the fact that, in her heart, she felt that Danny was right.

"Oh Sam…" Danny pulled her in a tight hug. "I'm sorry." He hated his own helplessness. "I'm sorry." At least he still loved Sam.

Sam leaned into his embrace and let herself cry. She didn't understand how it could be that she had been saved to be condemned again and how Danny could have been made a hero only to be beaten by this intangible destruction. It didn't make sense that he could give up, just as it made no sense for her to be this desperate. Here in a walk-in closet-sized panic room with the stoic light glinting above them, it didn't seem possible that things outside could have deteriorated so badly. Nothing, it seemed, save her feelings for him had been spared the poisonous touch of the darkness.

She pulled away from him, wiping her face with her hands, grinning through her tears. "The world isn't really all bad, is it?"

He met her eyes, smiling sadly, and took her cheek in his palm. "No. Not yet."

"Like you said, that blackness is in everything, and it's probably affecting our intuitions. We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously." She put her hand against his, enjoying the feel of his warm hand on her skin.

"No." Danny brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the last of her tears. "I guess not." He dropped his hand, keeping his fevered blue eyes locked on hers.

Neither of them could quite tell who moved next, but suddenly it seemed to Sam that Danny's eyes were much nearer, his lips tantalizingly close to her own. Sam closed the distance and took the kiss, feeling the cold touch of the wall on her back as Danny crawled over her, his hands on either side of her. She couldn't believe this, any of this, was happening.

She slid her arms behind his head and held his neck, her fingers in his hair, simultaneously feeling his own hands gliding over her body, forcing out all thoughts of darkness and allowing them both a small island of happiness amidst an endless ocean of hatred.


	21. Before the Storm

A/N: Once again, thanks to all reviewers. Yes, that last chapter was supposed to be a little not-quite-right sounding, in terms of the D/S bit. We're almost to the end of Part II!

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 21: Before the Storm

Gold fields and green mountains and glinting metal buildings—Alex didn't see any of it. He was so damn _angry_ with himself, but he couldn't even be truly angry, because nobody else but him had been responsible for the death of that woman but _he_ had failed to execute her and now nobody else would do it and the whole mess was just driving him crazy; he felt like he was being manipulated all over again, but this time he didn't have anybody or anything to blame it on.

So he rocketed across the landscape, led by the nose to he-didn't-know-where. He'd been dunked on his head, any semblance of sense eradicated. Dizzy and blinded and confused and, more than anything, tired, Alex just wanted to sleep the world away. It's what he would have done if those idiots hadn't woken him up in the crater.

The fields ended, and another city rose up before him. He shook off the other concerns long enough to wonder what _was_ leading him, but he couldn't tell. He sensed something like a magnetic pull, but the source and the medium? Could be anything, but given his luck and the nature of his life, Alex guessed it was most likely that black crap. His mouth drooped open. He'd get wherever he was going and sleep until forever—that much was certain, if he had anything to do with it. Which he probably wouldn't.

Alex's mind ran circles, alternating between furious and frustrated and confused and, continuously, exhaustion. At last he reached something that looked familiar, and he shook himself awake enough to take a look around. Warehouses: grungy, dirty warehouses on the outskirts of some city—_Amity_, he knew instinctively. The home of his enemies and his victims, of course it would have taken him to Amity.

He drifted down through a roof, coming into sight of his victims thrown carelessly atop each other. A wearied, nostalgic smile crept across his face. Things had been so much easier back then. Here, the dirty, shameful mess of his life seemed acceptable. What was done was done, and he was back among his elements and his home, whatever that was worth.

A second floor balcony looked out over the first floor, a rusted crane still mounted atop it. Alex drifted up and moved back against the wall, in the shadows and the damp and the stale, rotten stench of mildew. He laid down, spreading his arm under his head for a pillow, and fell asleep within moments.

XXX

"What do you mean you lost him?" Johnson glared at McKinley, waiting, as were the Chiefs of Staff and the President on teleconferencing, for an answer. The six men sat in a meeting room, with the President on a screen at the front of the table.

McKinley kept himself expressionless. He hadn't thought it would be so easy to face the end of his career, but here it was, and here he was, perfectly calm. "Our research department did not anticipate—"

"Fifty-two men are dead, Director McKinley." The President spoke slowly. "Fifty-two dead, a complete breach of your 'impenetrable' facility, and now Alex, a veritable nuclear weapon, so you tell us, is missing! Where your guys _all asleep_?"

"The field of ectoscience is undeveloped, to say the least. We've had few viable test subjects."

"And you won't have another. Johnson is taking over."

Johnson flashed a smile. "I'm all over it, sir."

McKinley leaned closer to the screen. "Alright. But I must recommend that he take some of my people on for the job."

Johnson snorted. "The FBI can do quite well without the interference of the FBP." He spoke the last acronym with snobbish disdain.

"Hopefully you'll do better than you did at the crater. Dan— Inviso-Bill and the rest would have escaped without trouble if I hadn't stepped in. I can give weapons and expertise. You don't have to take orders, but you must take suggestions." McKinley shook his head earnestly. "These things are not humans in the conventional sense, Johnson."

Johnson wasn't convinced, but McKinley was relieved to hear the President back him up. "Fine. Johnson, take McKinley's scientists. McKinley, you're relieved of duty until further notice."

McKinley ran his fingers through his hair, what little there was of it. "Yes sir."

"You seem to be taking this awfully well." Johnson crossed his arms, the ghost of a smile tracing his face.

"I don't like you Johnson, but I don't want the world to blow up either. If you think you can prevent that better than I, then you've got my full support."

For some reason, this declaration of confidence did little to inspire the FBI's director. In fact, he looked slightly shaken. The reaction didn't surprise McKinley, who knew very well that Johnson couldn't catch a ghost any better than he could catch an incoming meteor. God willing, Danny still had an ace up his sleeve. You never could tell with those ghost-types.

XXX

Jazz dragged herself through the front door, reveling in all those old house smells she'd never minded before. The creak of the steps, the chips in the table and the perpetually efficient look of the family kitchen seemed all too unappreciated after last night's adventure. What was it today, Saturday? That had definitely been among the worst Fridays of her life.

"I'm going to go unpack." In spite of this declaration, Jazz dumped her bags at the foot of the steps.

"You did your best, honey," her mother called after her. Jazz tried not to think about the thick bandage strapped across her mother's shoulders.

Jack harrumphed. "We'll get him, Jazzmine. Don't worry."

"Sure we will." Jazz shoved open her door and thumped down on her bed, enjoying the soft covers under her back before remembering her little brother. She got up and walked down the hall. His door was open and the room was empty. Unable to muster the energy to worry—Danny could take care of himself than any of them could, anyway—she picked up the phone and dialed Tucker.

"Hello?" The answering voice sounded guarded, a little hostile, but it was definitely Tucker.

"Hi Tucker, this is Jazz. Listen, have you seen Danny around? He's not here..."

"Try Sam's," came the short response. Jazz was on the verge of inquiring further when Tucker hung up on her.

She put the phone down and looked at the ceiling, trying to remember Sam's number. At last she poked around in Danny's desk, eventually finding something scrawled with what might be Sam's number. Jazz punched it in. The phone rang several times before anybody picked up. "Hello?"

"Sam, is Danny there? I haven't been able to—"

The phone crackled as voices drifted through the background. A different voice came on. "Jazz?"

Jazz gasped. "Danny? Are you okay?"

A quiet shiver drifted up her spine as he laughed. "Pretty much, yeah. But I wouldn't recommend going outside. Ever. The Fentons are pretty popular these days."

"Danny, get home right now. What are you doing at Sam's place this early, anyway?"

"Erm..."

"Danny!" Jazz shouted. If anything had happened.

"No no! It's nothing... I just got chased around last night, and I had to crash at her place."

"Did you crash _at_ her place, or did you crash _on her_."

The phone scratched as he sighed into it, exasperated. "Give me a break, Jazz. And keep your voice down. Nothing happened."

Jazz kept her end quiet. The silence built up between them like water behind a dam.

"Okay, so maybe we kissed a little, but I swear that's all. Not that it's any of your business anyway."

Jazz put her hand to her head. She believed him, but still... "I know things are bad. Alex escaped and killed a lot of people in the process, but we can't give up. We can beat him."

"Sure we can. Are Mom and Dad okay?"

Jazz bit her lip, picking at a few papers on his desk. "Mom got hurt. She's okay, though."

"Great."

"Just don't give up. Say it."

"Say what?"

"Say you won't give up."

"It's been nice talking to you, Dr. Jazz, but I've really got to go."

"I'll call back." Jazz frowned into the phone. "I'll call and I'll call and I'll call until you say it." Danny didn't respond to this familiar ploy. "You know I'll do it."

"Fine! I won't give up. Just stop bothering me." The answer was sarcastic, but not without good humor.

"Alright. I'll see you... when?"

"I'll be home in an hour. I still have to check something with Tucker."

XXX

When Danny came home, Jazz was in bed, fully clothed and atop her covers, reading. She'd been giving some serious thought to a nap when a vibration throughout the house and a loud slam announced the arrival of her brother.

She got up and opened her door, watching him stomp up the steps. "Things didn't go so well with Tucker?"

Danny shrugged. "Getting there." He smiled a little at Jazz. Dared she think that he almost looked happy to see her?

"I'm sure things will work out. If you need a, um..." What was a better phrase than the too-formal 'conflict mediator'? "Person to go between you guys, I can—"

He shook his head. "Thanks, but I'll handle it." He walked past her into his room.

Jazz stood a moment longer, debating the feasibility of pressing him. At length she sighed and retreated to her own, pulling out a notebook for journaling. Sometimes that helped her think more clearly. Her pen was still poised above the paper when Danny, without so much as a warning knock, slammed open her door.

"Did you say Alex escaped?"

Jazz nodded. "What about it?"

"I think I know where he is." Danny drummed his fingers against her doorpost, looking nervous and mildly astonished at his own sudden realization.

"Please tell me that you have McKinley's number."

"I do... But how do you know where Alex is?"

Danny looked at the floor. "I found his old victims. He'll have gone there."

"Why would he go someplace like that? When I talked to him—"

"It's not just that. I found his bodies and there is a lot of that black stuff around, and... well..."

"Well what?"

Danny bit his lip. "I can kind of feel him." He pointed to his temple. "In here. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm sure that's exactly where he is."


	22. Process of Elimination

A/N: **Rakal**: About four or five more chapters left. **Osco**: I'm thrilled that you think so highly of this series. I'm pretty busy with this story right now, but I'll be sure to check you out sometime. **Asilla and Faith's Melody**: Thanks! **Sakura Scout**: All will be revealed herein (sort of).

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbit

Chapter 22: Process of Elimination

Jazz called McKinley who called Johnson who called the President. The President called the Pentagon for reinforcements and then he called Johnson back and ordered him to "kick Alex's sorry ass. I want him _gone_."

Johnson nodded curtly. "It'll be a pleasure, sir." He hung up the phone and called McKinley back. McKinley, who had anchored himself to a couch in front of his plasma screen television, almost didn't answer, but after the tenth ring his curiosity got the better of him.

He smiled wearily. "Hello, Johnson."

"I need your weapons."

McKinley gave him directions to his storage facilities, feeling guilty in a very distant kind of way. He didn't know why he was concerned. If Alex could manipulate nuclear energy, there wasn't a thing on earth that would be able to stop either him or whatever it was he'd set in motion. Then again, it certainly would be in McKinley's own best interests to have Alex caught. At least they'd have a ghost of a chance with Alex in custody. Whatever the situation, he wanted to at least be there for the fireworks. McKinley stood, holding the phone between ear and shoulder, and began rifling through his closet for business clothes. Things had gotten slack around both bureaus, but he'd still need something a little more formal than a bathrobe.

"You'll need my men to operate that stuff."

"No I won't. Give me access to the warehouse."

He thought they'd already covered this, but McKinley was willing to play along. No rush. "Those things are impossible to operate if you're not trained." He pulled on the formal suit. "You could blow yourselves up."

"Fine. Have them meet me at Amity's City Hall."

McKinley quirked a smile at Johnson's curtness. "You'll need me, too." He didn't know whether to go with dress shoes or work boots. He reached for the work boots; who cared about appearances at this point?

"Shut up."

McKinley clucked his tongue. "Rude. Besides, you know my guys despise you almost as much as you hate them."

"I don't hate them," insisted Johnson.

"Sure you don't. They're used to working under me. I'll take orders from you, and I'll give orders to them."

McKinley straightened his tie as Johnson considered it. "Alright," he said at last. "But the President isn't going to like this."

"He won't like it, but he'll allow it. You can count on that."

XXX

They met several hours later in the heated Amity Park City Hall. The temperature held in the high thirties, very unusual for the fall season. McKinley glanced out the windows as the SWAT team, the FBI, and the police worked out their separate issues in private groups. His own team stood off on its own, ignoring the curious stares of the more respectable members of the force, and double-triple-checking the equipment. McKinley smiled, proud of them, and turned back to his window.

Few people walked the streets outside. The cold wound through the flesh in record time out there, and without some kind of heavy-duty jacket not many people would put up with it for long. McKinley wouldn't be surprised if it snowed that night. His eyes wandered to the street corner where a teenage kid with short black hair waved to him, his arm covered in a padded brown jacket. McKinley discreetly waved back. Next to him stood a girl, both her hair and jacket black, who clutched her arms for heat. McKinley frowned.

"Are we ready?"

He turned to see that little weasel, Johnson, glaring at him. McKinley nodded and walked back towards the center of the room. "I believe so."

"Good." The large group listened as he began to explain the plan.

XXX

Sam looked up at Danny, stamping her feet. "What are they doing?"

Danny had returned, more or less, to his former self. His dreams had bothered him last night, but otherwise he felt ready for anything once more. The jacket served as a rough kind of disguise, not that anybody bothered investigating anybody else in this weather. "McKinley said they were going to try going after Alex."

"Try?"

Danny stood behind her, idly rubbing her arms to warm her. "McKinley didn't sound like he thought they'd succeed."

She turned, meeting his eyes. "Do you?" Danny shook his head. "Why not?"

"Even if they did catch Alex, it wouldn't matter because he's not the problem anymore. Maybe if the research teams had ten years we could stop this, but given how fast this… whatever it is that's going on, I'd say Alex is pretty much worthless at this point."

Sam held herself tighter, shivering. Danny hugged her from behind, sharing his body heat. "What are we going to do?" she asked

"Follow them. Maybe something good will happen."

At that Sam began to laugh, but she found she couldn't stop laughing. Danny tried to reassure her, but he couldn't even take himself seriously, so he didn't know why Sam would. At length, he caught the hysteria and joined her laughter. The two of them were still giggling a minute or so later.

"Seriously, something good might happen."

Sam nodded. "Mm-hm. I'm sure it will." Danny had to look away to keep from breaking out all over again.

A door slammed behind him. "Oh, here they come!" Danny turned the two of them away, walking a short distance from City Hall, trying to look like normal non-ghost pedestrians. The rush of government men emerged, their combat boots thumping down the concrete steps and into a series of vans and cars waiting in the street below. Some shouted orders while others grumbled and complained under their breaths.

"Cheerful bunch." Sam glanced at the newspaper stands where they'd stopped, peering through the plastic windows of the metal boxes. The headlines declared general chaos. She looked away. "So are we going to fly?"

Danny nodded. "Don't see how else we can keep up." They made for a convenient enclave while Danny went ghost. He lifted Sam into the air and pursued the caravan of government cronies, looking down at them from the frozen gray sky. Danny kept Sam's hand pressed tightly in his own. Both could feel each other's shivers, and not all of them were from the cold.

XXX

Jazz had done her best to keep her parents home, but they wouldn't hear of it. Her father was still trying to convince her that it wasn't a horrible idea. "The director of the FBP—"

"Former director." Jazz crossed her arms.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine. _Former_ director, is assembling the biggest ghost-fighting task force ever and you want us to stay home?"

"No can do, sweetie." Maddie set a box of equipment down on the steps. "They need our help." As she straightened, the bandage over her shoulders flexed, and Maddie's face flickered with pain. "We'll be fine."

Jazz heard her teeth grinding. Something was odd with that bandage, other than the fact, of course, that one of her 'patients' had given her mother the injury. According to every paper and witness report of Alex she'd ever seen or heard, he usually went for the kill. It was one of many mysteries that bothered her, and her discomfort over that didn't hold a candle to her frustration that her parents were being so stubborn. "McKinley registered _nuclear activity_."

"That's why we have haz-mat suits." Jack snapped his orange suit's fabric and grinned, beaming with false reassurance.

Jazz slapped her forehead. "You know what, fine. If you guys insist on being… heroes, than I'm not going to complain about it." She hefted the box her mother had set down and, on her direction, loaded it into the ghost-hunting RV. She helped them assemble the rest of the gadgets in the back, and when they'd all been safely installed, her father reached up and slammed the trunk shut.

He dusted his hands. "Thanks for helping."

"Don't mention it."

Maddie gave her a tight hug. "Don't worry about us. We'll be back soon."

_In caskets, _Jazz thought. Her parents climbed into the front seats, and the automotive embarrassment roared to life as Jack turned the keys. Her mind put events in fast-forward, she saw them bumping down the street, her mother wincing as the ride jostled her wound… The full force of the matter made itself clear with a bright revelation of disaster. Jazz clenched her teeth and ran up to the driver's side window, banging for Jack to roll it down.

"Don't go. Please don't go." Her lip quivered. "You'll die. Don't go…"

"Jazz, honey, we'll be fine." Jack patted her outstretched hand. "We'll be right back." Jazz shook her head.

Maddie sighed. She got out of the car and stood before Jazz, leaning to kiss her cheek. "We'll be right back. I promise."

"Don't make promises," Jazz whispered.

"I don't see why you're so upset. I did alright before, didn't I?"

Jazz looked pointedly at her mother's bandage. "No. You got away because Alex let you. Nothing's in his hands anymore." Jazz couldn't help it. She grabbed Maddie in a tight hug. "Please don't go."

Jack honked the horn. "Jazz," Maddie began. "I'm going." Gently, she moved away and got back in the car. "We'll be home soon." Jazz couldn't see them leave. She ran into the house and up to her room, slamming all the doors behind her. She jumped on the bed, laying down on her stomach and stifling the sobs with her pillow.

XXX

The guard wiped his running nose as he jogged in place. "Nice night, yeah?"

His companion nodded. "Oh yeah. But you know, we're needed out here." He straightened his black, armored jacket in mock formality. "You never know when something that's been inactive since its appearance might explode."

The two of them had been trucked out to Green Bay for the specific purpose of watching Alex's crater and the dark sphere within it. They stood on either side of the dark fixture, and the immediate area was lit with bright floodlights and watched by half a dozen cameras. Not only was the job cold, miserable, and boring, but they couldn't even enjoy the time-honored occupation of all bored guards of catching a light snooze.

The first figured talking was better than freezing. "Remember when we had to do that one job in Washington?"

The other chuckled. "Oh yeah. Guarding the President's dog."

"I bet we could make a lot of money selling these stories. You know, TV or ghost writers or something."

"You can't enjoy wealth when you're locked in San Quentin."

The other nodded, chuckling. "True enough."

The two guards fell quiet, standing several yards away from either side of the sphere. At least it was cool to watch, they figured. It looked like a hold had been punched out of reality, leaving a swirling pattern of dark grays and black. The first couple days it had been creepy enough, but after a week it was merely amusing. They dreamed of pitching rocks into it but didn't dare for the cameras.

The first guard looked at it. After so long it seemed like a giant snow globe, but all at once it became a _sparking_ snowglobe. "Hey!"

"What?" answered the other.

"Did you see that? This thing flashed."

"Naw." His buddy smiled. "You're kidding."

"It did. Just watch it."

The two of them stared at the thing, one with skepticism, the other with fascination. A bolt of white lighting struck through the inside of it, flashing along its outside and sparking into the space around it before dissipating in the sphere's dark center. "Cripes! You're right!"

He clicked on his radio, but before he could speak the sphere flashed again. The electric, blinding white bolts fled across the sphere's surface with greater density and frequency until the whole thing had changed from a pensive swirling black to a painful glaring snow-white.

"Um," said the first guard into his radio. The sphere held its color and position, almost holding its breath. Its white surface belted out a sound like thunder as it split in millions of pitch black, hairline fractures. The hairlines grew into considerable fractures; darkness peered from it like light, and the sphere exploded. Something beyond human sight but well within the range of human sensations burst forth like a cloud of invisible but lethal gas.

The two guards threw down their firearms and bolted in an escape attempt that proved futile.

XXX

Alex's eyes snapped open. He had this impossible itching sensation in his head, and it was driving him crazy. "Figures," he muttered, massaging his temples. Something would wake him up, just when he'd got to a safe spot. The itching receded a little, now that he'd begun to recognize it. "I don't even want to know." Nevertheless he dragged himself up, stretching his arms, and looked over the edge of his second-floor landing.

The black stuff was really excited. It sloshed against the walls of the warehouse like water in a pool, ten to fifteen feet deep, alternately covering and revealing the victims below. "What? What's going on now?" The stuff curled up to him, checking him out. Alex poked it. The stuff curled around his finger, making Alex want to wretch, but at length it let go. Obviously it didn't think he had a viable soul for it to feed on. Or maybe it was just professional courtesy.

Whatever it thought, it didn't do a damn thing for his headache. Alex resigned himself to the fact that the itching nervousness wasn't going to go away until he found out what was causing it. He cringed and activated his introspection. He found the problem with very little effort; and oddly enough it was a mental image of a red haired psychologist and a certain recently exploded sphere. One or the other wouldn't have bothered him, but for a reason Alex would never admit to himself, he found both of them together to be slightly distressing, and his distress had given rise to this infuriating brain-itch.

"I really, _really_ don't care. Go away." Naturally, the itching did nothing of the sort. Alex growled and flopped back in his corner. "I don't care I don't care I don't care…" He almost felt like somebody was laughing at him. Alex jumped up and shook himself, trying to clear his head.

The worst part about being a free being, he thought, is that you can't blame anybody for shit like this. The itching wasn't being influenced or generated by the black stuff. He'd know if that was the case, because that would mean he had the blackness in his head, and if that was the case he'd be enjoying himself a lot more right now. No, he was restless because his own filthy emotions had turned on him because of that stupid girl and that lazy sphere.

"I _don't care!_" He sat back resolutely against the wall and shut his eyes. Alex didn't move, but his hands trembled. Below, the black goop roiled up, a tentacle or two stretching over his landing. Alex showed his teeth, but he didn't open his eyes. The stuff coiled closer to him, just six inches from his face. Anyone who'd been watching would have thought the stuff looked amused.

It spoke with something less than words but more than noise. Alex got the telepathic message, and his reluctant brain translated it into marginally sensible words. "Neener neener," said the blackness.

"Argh! Fine I'LL GO!" Alex blasted up through the roof and let his instincts draw him through his connection with the city's rising blackness, making a beeline for the Fenton place. "But I still don't care."

XXX

Johnson grabbed McKinley's collar and pointed at the sky. "Is that Alex?"

McKinley glanced up. "Yup." The whole party had halted as the green streak raced over them. They had been setting up just outside the warehouse when it happened, and all the agents had stopped dead in their tracks. Johnson shoved McKinley away, dusting off his coat and clearing his throat. He should be angry, but honestly McKinley didn't mind the presumption.

"Good thing or bad thing?" Johnson kept his voice down, waving to his snipers to be ready.

McKinley jerked his head toward the warehouse in front of them, where dark shapes curled within. "Bad thing." The blackness burst forth from its doors like a tidal wave. Johnson's mouth dropped open as he turned to run, and McKinley's eyes closed as the wave swept up the party, leaving them all to scream as it sucked out their minds.

Danny had been watching from a building across the street, and he heard the shouts before he saw the goo. He never did get a good look at the darkness that emerged, because before it could reach him he'd phased himself and Sam from view and jumped into the air.

"Danny! We have to go back and—"

"And what Sam?" Danny brought them down a couple blocks over. "That stuff almost killed me before."

Sam turned away, back the way they'd come. "We can't just leave them there."

"We have to." Danny's arms hung at his sides, and he'd returned to human form. Sam slapped him. Danny didn't stop her when she slapped him again, but he held her when she collapsed in his arms. He rested his head on her shoulder and shut his eyes, wondering where the world had gone.

XXX

Jazz bolted from her chair as the front door slammed against the wall. She hurried from her room and was halfway down the stairs when she realized that her parents hadn't returned, but Alex had. And he looked a wreck. She couldn't begin to think of what to do. She hadn't been able to think clearly all day and anything she said could set him off. She blinked her eyes and tried to take a good look at him.

Alex really did look terrible, even for him. He shivered, glancing fearfully around the house before glancing up at her. "Three minutes."

Jazz tried to sound tough. "What are you doing here?"

"Two and a half, now." He stared right through her.

"You hurt my mother."

Alex's troubled eyes cleared, and he looked away. "The fact that she's your mother is the only reason I didn't kill her." He ground his teeth distractedly, glaring at the carpet. Jazz thought he almost looked ashamed of himself.

She might as well make an effort. "What's going to happen in two and a half minutes, and does it have anything to do with why you're here?"

"The end of the world, and sort of. The um, doom finally got out of that sphere. Took its sweet time about it, too." He sighed and looked back up at her, something troubled and disappointed in his glance.

Jazz couldn't figure it. "But why are you here?"

Alex shoved his hands in his pockets, eyes rolling up at the ceiling. "Because I'm a moron," he spat.

The truth of the matter hit Jazz like a freight train. Alex _liked_ her.

And he looked absolutely furious with himself. He put his forehead in his hands. "Forty seconds." He dropped his hands and took a step or two forward. Jazz found herself paralyzed. "I don't want this thing to happen. I've wanted it for myself for some time, but I don't want…"

"You don't want it to happen to me," Jazz whispered. Alex couldn't meet her eyes.

"Yes."

The air changed. People started screaming outside as a slight shimmer flashed into the room. Jazz winced and lost her balance, pitching forward on the stairs. Alex leaped up and caught her in a burst of energy, laying her down at the foot of the steps before jerking away. Jazz curled into a ball on the floor as the shimmering quickened, her face contorted in silent pain.

Alex kneeled next to her, stuttering, forcing out the words. "Jazz, I'm sorry…"

She flashed her last smile at him. "You're not all bad." Alex didn't know how or why she could say that, for in the next moment he found himself staring at a dead body.

XXX

Several minutes before Jazzmine died, Sam and Danny were still alone on the sidewalk and the last of the government drones were dying. Sam had recovered somewhat, and she felt it when Danny tensed

He pulled away from her, suddenly conscious. "We have to get out of here."

"Why?"

"It's not safe." He looked up at the buildings around them and peered up and down the street, not quite worried but definitely anxious.

"What's wrong now?"

He glanced at the sky. "Something weird is coming."

Sam chuckled. "Could you be more specific?"

Danny smiled at her, but turned his attention back to that little warning light bleeping steadily outside conscious grasp. "I can't put my finger on it, but something is really, really not right." He licked his lips. "Something's getting closer."

"You're imagining things."

"I don't think so."

Danny's eyes widened at the sight of a figure racing toward him. Danny zapped to ghost, unsure of whether this was the source of his worries or not. He was on the verge of firing off a plasma beam, just to be safe, when the figure called out. "Wait!"

Danny dropped his hands. "Tucker?" He hadn't recognized him before, but the figure stopped a couple yards away and Danny saw that it was indeed Tucker, with the thermos in hand. "What are you doing here? I mean, I'm glad to see you, but this isn't exactly the best time…"

"Look, I'm sorry about what a jerk I've been. I heard about the big attack they were going to make and I followed you guys over here. I want to help you, and I'm sorry for being a jerk." He held up the thermos, grinning desperately. "See?"

Danny squinted at him. "Who are you and what have you done with Tucker?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't want you two to have to face Alex yourselves." Tucker wrung his hands around the thermos. "And there was kind of a riot in my neighborhood. My parents got hurt." Danny smiled, sad and sympathetic.

"We're glad to have you back, Tucker, but you're a little late." Sam nodded in the direction of the warehouses. "All the professionals got… well…" She scuffed the ground. "Nobody's left over there."

"What? You can't mean they're _all_ gone." Tucker looked between Danny and Sam. Neither looked hopeful. "This is bad, isn't it."

Danny rubbed his shoulder, glancing skyward. "Yes, and I think it's about to get worse. That thing I was talking about is almost here."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Alright, what's this new 'thing'?" Danny shook his head. "Well, whatever happens to us," Tucker continued. "I just want you guys to know… I'm sorry I was being stupid."

Sam smiled sympathetically. "We forgive you."

"Guys…" Danny's eyes flashed as the air began to change: something had torn through his mind without warning. He staggered back against the building, knowing the game had finally ended as the stuff began shredding his awareness, his memories and emotions. He heard Sam and Tucker through his own curtain of pain. This was just like the first time Alex had attacked him… They were all dead, now.

"Danny!" Tucker shouted.

"What?" he managed.

"Grab Sam and phase her out!"

The pain was unbearable. Danny figured a couple seconds, max. He didn't answer Tucker, but he did as he said, dimly wondering why Tucker would ask such a thing. He grasped Sam's hand, the two of them holding tight, and phased them both out of sight, feeling his ghost form flickering perilously as he danced on the edge of unconsciousness. Looking up, he saw Tucker. His friend held the thermos wrapped in his arms, pointed at Danny.

"Tucker! Wait!"

Tucker activated the thermos, its bright beam dimmed by the brightly flashing air around them all. "I trust you, old buddy."

Danny yelled for him to stop as the bright, magnetic beam of the thermos yanked him and Sam into its mechanical depths, throwing both their minds and bodies into deep freeze as Tucker collapsed outside, gasping, with one hundred thousand others, his last dying breath.

* * *

A/N: You guys are going to have to trust me on this one. The story ain't over yet.  



	23. Dead or Doomed

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

PART III

Chapter 23: Dead or Doomed

Pain crackled up Danny's spine as the thermos shattered. It dumped him onto a surface dry, cold, and rocky, and since there was nothing that immediately prompted him to move, Danny stayed down and waited for the ache in his muscles to recede. His ears echoed with a sharp, clean, deafening tone, but when it stopped, a noise of crumbling earth made him conscious of the other being nearby. He had to think before he remembered who it might be.

"Sam…?" Danny hauled himself into a sitting position, rubbing his head. His watery vision made it hard to discern where he was, but he could tell that it was bright and open.

The figure next to him joined him, her hand searching for his own. Danny took it, squeezing it, trying to bring them both into the world at hand. She leaned against his shoulder, more for support than comfort. "Where are we?"

"Five or six miles out of town."

They both recognized the voice. Sam's body went rigid, and Danny quickly scrambled to his feet, but he couldn't catch his balance and tripped backward. The voice chuckled. "I wouldn't try anything like that just yet."

"Alex?" Danny stumbled back crab-style until he hit the more or less vertical surface of a boulder, and, using his feet, backed himself up against it and managed to stand. Everything was blurry. He felt pathetic. "Where are we? What are you doing? What happened? Where's Tucker?"

"I hate questions." A human-sized blur moved a short distance away. Squinting, Danny could see that he and Sam had emerged at the foot of a hill, up against a small landslide of dirt, gravel, and one or two larger boulders.

Sam managed to get on her feet, arms held out carefully for balance. "Why did you let us go? At least answer that."

"Because if I'm not allowed to sleep through this then you sure as hell aren't." Definitely Alex, Danny saw. By now he could see him clearly if he worked at it. Alex looked bored. Half-lidded eyes stared with a dull kind of venom at himself and Sam, a hint of a snarl on his lips.

"Tucker is dead, naturally. So are both your parents and siblings and just about all your relatives, unless they happen to be visiting Europe, Asia, or Antarctica, in which case they've probably got another day or so. Maximum."

Sam narrowed her eyes. "Liar."

Alex jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "You wish." Behind him, over the field and beyond forest, something black as coal slithered over Amity Park's skyline. Alex smiled at their shocked expressions. "Amity's a ghost town, now. Except I'm fairly certain that thing eats ghosts, too, so unless either of you has a death wish you should stay away." Alex crossed his legs, leaning comfortably against a different rock.

The cloudy sky above them looked like it should start raining any minute, yet the air stayed dry as a bone. It was one of many things that made no sense to Danny. "So how'd you survive?"

Alex shrugged. "I'm more of a tool than a ghost."

"You can say that again," Sam muttered. Alex almost managed a glare at her, but he merely looked away and went on.

"What I mean is that I was designed to open the portal for that thing. I'm just a gear in this thing's machine, and even though I'm a useless gear, apparently I'm just lucky enough that it reads enough of itself in me to leave me alone." He smiled the kind of smile people smile when they'd really rather be strangling something. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"Sure," Danny muttered. He'd been testing his powers, bringing experimental balls of plasma to his hands, recovering his abilities. He was fully recovered from the shock of the thermos, and Alex still hadn't made any moves. A nod from Sam let him know she was alright again, too. Danny took an assertive step forward, saving the devastating reality check for later and assuming his slightly deflated role of hero. "Alright, what was that… whatever it was that attacked us?"

"A disassembler program."

"Clear as mud, Alex."

Alex rolled his eyes. "I assume you're familiar with gravity?"

"I'm not stupid."

He sighed. "Yes you are, but listen and you might learn something. Reality is encoded with laws expressed as mathematical equations. Who knows why the hell they're mathematical, but they are. Things like gravity and magnetism are facts."

Sam crossed her arms. "So you're saying this thing is like that. A fact."

Alex nodded. "More or less. It's similar in that it's a force encoded in all matter, like the four normal forces, but different in that it also acts on ectoplasm, while the other four: gravity, strong nuke, weak nuke, and electromagnetism—" Alex ticked them off his fingers mechanically. It was clear to Sam that he'd been through this with himself multiple times. "Anyway, those four obviously don't act on ectoplasm, a.k.a. ghosts. This new fifth force acts on everything."

Danny looked back at Amity, at the dark cloud circling about it, dipping in and out among the skyscrapers. "But it's evil."

"You don't blame gravity when elderly people fall and break their hips. You're welcome to blame me for 'activating' this force, but you can't attack the force itself." Alex spread his hands. "How could you? It's physics."

Sam wasn't buying it yet. "So if it acts on everything why aren't inanimate things affected? There's a forest over there and it looks okay." She wasn't especially enjoying the discussion, but she'd much rather focus on Alex's explanations than the painful deaths of millions.

Alex continued, still sounding mildly computerized. Distantly, Sam recognized that something about him had changed again. The same thought had occurred to Danny, but he was too troubled by the sight of Amity's blackness to give it any credit.

"The forest isn't affected because forests aren't emotional," Alex answered. "The principle difference between ectoplasm and ordinary matter is that ectoplasm isn't bound by any of the conservation laws." Alex bent and picked up a small stone. "By Einstein's equation, the amount of energy able to be extracted from this rock, were such a thing either possible or practical, would be no greater than 'm' 'c' squared. Follow?"

Danny nodded. He was starting to really hate physics.

"Now, start with any amount of ectoplasm and you'll be able to get an indefinite amount of energy from it, depending purely on the emotional state of its source. Unless that forest gets really, really pissed off, the black stuff won't consider it worth its while to convert it. It'll have to wait for the main body of force, which, unlike gravity, travels as a cloud, and thus takes a little more time to reach the more distant clumps of matter. It's probably got some kind of wormholing ability to cover interstellar distances."

Alex paused to think. He shifted, snatching a rock off the ground and tossing it between his hands. "Here. Watch." He pressed it between his palms, brow furrowing. Danny shuddered as the rock darkened and collapsed into a lethargic puddle of black. Alex let it pour from his hands to the ground, where it stretched out thin tentacles and withdrew into itself again, not moving much. "The stuff _is_ in everything, but it likes to stay put. The bigger it gets, the more motive it is. I suggest you get used to it, because eventually the world is going to be one big black ball of this stuff. After that, the universe. It'll take a while, but physics is very patient. Now you know as much as I do." Alex didn't say anything more. He leaned back against his rock, waiting for them to respond.

For his own part, Danny couldn't believe it. It didn't seem possible, even given the weirdness of the last couple days. Maybe he could wrap his brain around it if it was just Amity, or even America—some kind of earthquakey thing—but the whole planet? The universe and all reality? He looked back over the trees, over at Amity. The darkness was real. It was real, and it was all that remained of every living person in that town. He blinked, turning back to Alex, who merely raised an inquisitive eyebrow and shrugged.

The world _had _been good, hadn't it? Things hadn't always been this way, even though recently it had started to seem like that. Danny was sure he could remember having a good time with Sam as recently as last week, and hadn't that been their anniversary? He remembered too all the kids at school, flawed, yes, but happy? Yes, all things considered, that too. Now the school probably sat in the middle of a pile of that stuff. Now all the people he'd known, Tucker and Dash and Paullina and all the rest of them were probably laid out flat on the floor. The world truly had been good, but now everyone was dead or doomed and Danny could feel his mind being slowly corrupted by this blackness that permeated everything.

He stabbed a finger towards Alex. "You…"

Alex nodded. "Yes, me."

Danny clenched his fists. "How could you do that?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." He flashed a snide smile at Danny. "Still does, actually."

"Danny," Sam interjected. "I know, oh God I know how bad this is, but please don't—"

"Sam, this guy just destroyed the world!"

Alex shrugged. "'S true."

Looking at the tight smirk on Alex, Danny snapped. With a roar of anger he flashed forward and tackled Alex, hitting him with everything, blinded and seeing blood red.

Alex just laughed. Danny jumped on him, flung him to the ground and put his foot in his side, planted a knee on Alex's ribs and pummeled him—but Alex just laughed, and when Danny halted for a second to shake his fist free of the ectoplasm leaking from Alex's battered face and body, Alex just laughed all the harder, his face reforming instantaneously. "I'm a **_ghost_**, you moron!"

"I wish I could kill you," Danny seethed.

Alex couldn't stop lauging. "I wish you could too."

"Danny!" He jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder. The hand fled away as he whirled to face Sam. Her eyes pleaded with him. "Come on. We've got enough problems without wasting energy on Alex."

Danny became aware that he'd been panting. He stood up and walked back from Alex, weak-kneed. "You killed my family." He locked eyes with Alex. "Except Sam, you killed everyone I ever loved."

Alex propped himself up on his elbows. He rubbed his jaw, that insane grin yet plastered across it. "But I didn't kill your mother."

Danny's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Come on Danny." Sam tugged his arm. "Let's go."

Danny twitched, and Alex half-expected another kick, but, at length, Danny decided against it. He turned and let Sam lead him away and out of sight, the two of them moving away from the city and around the rocky hill.

Alex sat up, rubbing his aching face. Not that rubbing it made it feel any better. He stared thoughtlessly into the gray sky, tracing it down to the high-rises of Amity's skyline. The blackness continued to curl possessively above it.

A motion nearby caught his attention, the black goop he'd created from the rock. It didn't seem to know what to do with itself. It tangled among the dry grass near the rocks, just a couple feet away. On a whim, Alex leaned over and picked it up. He held it in his hands for a moment, wondering why it hadn't disappeared. When he'd rubbed the black stuff out of McKinley's chair, back when he'd first been caught, it had retreated back into the chair pretty quickly when he put it down. Alex figured that now that its boss was in town, goop was more stable as goop than as a solid object. He toyed with the stuff between his fingers, testing its consistency, its pliability. The countryside around him lay utterly silent.

"Hm." Alex held the thing in his palm and concentrated on a remembered image of the thing's original form, the stone. A half hour, an hour passed, and the blackness moved up and began to form itself into a round shape, continuing to be black and goopy, but mildly resembling the stone. Alex cocked his head, going over in detail what he could recall of its former texture, contours, and colors. The blackness shuddered, and suddenly Alex was holding a stone. He tossed it up once, caught it, and threw it against the boulder near the remains of the thermos. The stone clicked solidly, neither breaking nor dissolving.

Alex nodded slowly, unable to bring himself to feel one way or the other. "Now that's interesting."

* * *

A/N: First chapter in a while to achieve something like 'quality'... Nox! Glad to hear you like my stuff. :) Kudos to Sakura, the predicter of the truth. And kudos to Asilla and Chaotic for their positiveness. Gecko, I'm not totally sure if I agree with your critique, but it continues to give me warm fuzzies of pride, and motivation. Thanks all!  



	24. Made for Life

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 24: Made for Life

"Come on, Danny." Sam hugged him closer as they stumbled along the skirt of the mountain, neither injured physically, both aching internally. It hardly seemed possible to Sam that _everybody_ had gone. It sucked the strength right out of her, and it didn't help that she'd been feeling weaker since this whole thing started. More and more she'd been starting at the shadows and depending on Danny's support, transforming into the easily-frightened Barbie girl she had shirked from for years. Now with the two of them stumbling for footholds, she didn't dare look Danny in the eye.

She fixed her gaze on the dark horizon. "We have to get away from Alex. He's always been bad news for us. Then we'll rest for a little while and start—"

"Rest now." His breathing, formerly staggered and irregular, began to slow, normalizing itself. "There won't be a later, and we've gone far enough anyway."

He let go of Sam and dropped to the ground, reverting to human form, splaying out his limbs and glaring at the sky. Sam lay down beside him. "What do you think we should do?"

Danny squinted up thoughtfully. "We have to try something." He clicked his fingers on the ground, rustling them in the dry grass. "Maybe that black stuff has some kind of weakness... Something we don't know about it."

"Like what?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Nobody knows anything about this stuff except Alex, and he's not exactly a big help. Either way—" Danny sat up to face Sam. "It means we'll have to get close to it."

Sam tried to keep her voice calm. "Isn't that sort of a bad idea? Like, a _really_ bad idea?"

"I'm open to suggestions, but we can't just sit around out here." He paused. "At least, I can't." There was no way Sam was letting him go alone, and she told him so, but she didn't say that there was an even smaller chance of her allowing Danny to abandon her out here with a psycho for company.

They didn't move for a while longer. Sam reassured herself that she could do this—yes, she could do this. And at least they were doing something, after all. If they died... she wasn't going to think about that, but at least they would go trying to do something good for the world. Her hand wandered into Danny's. From the way he squeezed it, she guessed his thoughts ran along roughly the same lines.

"Alright." Danny stood and brushed himself off. "Let's go." He to ghost and took them both into the air. The wind swept by her hair, the fields passing silently beneath them. The breeze massaged the tops of her ears and froze the tip of her nose. On a vague suspicion, Sam glanced behind to search for Alex, but she didn't see him. The matter vaguely disturbed her.

"He's there," Danny muttered. "But he's not going to bother us. I don't think."

She looked at him dubiously. "Oh. Okay." Sam didn't know if it was right for Danny to be able to track Alex so easily.

They crossed into the forested area, growing closer to the black cloud of Amity. Danny ducked beneath the trees, presumably to avoid giving advance warning. He had to slow down. The trees were thick, obscuring the sky above, but they did smell pretty good. Earth and dampness mixed with fresh, tingling smells from the trees and warm decaying matter below—it was a welcome relief from the dead hillside. They swept through it, and Danny was careful not to hit anything, at least, he was until Sam felt him faltering. "Danny?"

Their flight continued to decay. Danny's eyes drooped, on the verge of nodding off in mid-flight. "Danny!"

He blinked. "Wha-aah!"

The tree rushed at them. It caught Danny in the chest with a thick branch. Sam hit a thick cluster of branches and leaves that scratched angrily at her face before letting her drop to the forest floor. She landed with a thump on something smooth and bumped, striking pain into her backbone. She groaned and rolled off the bumpy tree root, unable to sit up for the sharp pain. "Danny...?"

"I'm here." There was a crash as he stumbled out of a nearby patch of weeds and bushes. He had a few scratches and bruises, but he was otherwise uninjured. "Are you okay?"

"I hit my back on something, but I should be okay in a minute. Why did we crash?"

He toed the ground, embarrassed. "I got kind of... distracted." Sam didn't ask what had distracted him.

"Is there something I can do to help?" he offered. "I've heard back rubs can sometimes..."

"Danny." Sam managed, with difficulty, to sit up and smile at him. "I'm not going to die from a back injury. The world is ending. Do you really think we should be goofing around giving each other back rubs?"

He raised his hands. "Right now, I'll go with whatever works. And I _have_ heard that back rubs help this kind of thing."

And Sam's back didn't exactly feel _spectacular_. She rolled her eyes. "Alright then." Danny zapped to human, and she let him come around to take a seat behind her. She leaned back into his hands. "Whatever works."

"That's the line."

Almost immediately Sam started to feel better. His hands squeezed and massaged her collarbone, the back of her neck, warming them with friction and making her own eyes droop sleepily. "Mmm..." Naturally, she was very careful to remind herself that this was what 'worked' and this was being done to help her recover from her back ache. Sort of.

His hands moved lower, rubbing circles along either side of her spine. She could feel the hesitancy in his movement, and that Danny had clearly not performed many backrubs. Sam thought it was cute. It made her feel sneaky—sneaky and very, _very_ relaxed. The strain drained out of her arms and legs. "Okay, I think I'm fi-innne..." The word fell from her lips as Danny stopped to kiss her neck. His warm, soft breath and the touch of his lips both brought a very different kind of tension into play. Sam was fairly certain that this no longer qualified as 'whatever worked.' She let him go a bit longer, during which time his hands slid up and held fast to her upper arms, moving himself closer to caress her.

Sam scooted around to face him and treated him to her best fake glare. She definitely enjoyed the anxious awkwardness it gave him. "Was that part of the plan?"

He shook his head desperately, but he didn't look totally certain. "No! I mean, sort of..." He shrugged. "Did it work?"

With a laugh Sam threw her arms around him and kissed him. He caught on quickly as Sam made it eminently clear that this did indeed work for her.

Sensations raced faster. Everything came to Sam as smells and touches, caressing hands and wet lips against her flesh, bolts of pleasure as her freshman crush and sophomore boyfriend put a hand beneath her shirt and went where no one had ever gone. Fabric rustled against the soft earth beneath as somehow her shirt came off, the cold wind crashing onto her panting chest. Next to go were her shirt and leggings, and still everything held in a fog, a scarlet, suffocating cloud of the instant, of the tactile, and of the sensual. She turned her head, leaves crunching beneath it. Through the haze she saw somebody a little way off. Sam shrieked and shot out from under Danny.

It was Alex.

She grabbed her clothes and frantically cleared her head as she leaped into her leggings and shirt, forcing the fog away. She looked over at Danny and felt a whole new kind of panic. His pants were down around his ankles, and he still didn't seem to know quite what was going on.

"Sam, what's--?"

"Shut up!" she yelled, gesturing to Alex. Danny saw and scrambled to his feet, pulling up his jeans. Sam clutched her head. "Oooh, I don't BELIEVE this..." She had all her clothes on by now. So did Danny, but he still didn't totally get it.

"What, wait, Sam?" Danny had the good sense to keep his distance, but he clearly didn't know what to make of the situation, so he started with Alex. "You shouldn't have, um..." His strong start faltered as Sam shot him a look that could have vaporized granite.

He just didn't get it. "We're FIFTEEN YEARS OLD!" Danny remained mute. "We're not SUPPOSED to be DOING that!"

"Sam, I swear I didn't mean to. I swear!" He hadn't, either. Danny couldn't remember half of what had happened, and neither could Sam, for that matter.

She groaned. "You don't get it. I don't get it, either—but that thing has ruined us!"

Sam was furious, and Danny wished he could understand why. "What do you mean? I thought it was just—"

"Danny, did you do that because you loved me or because it would make you feel better?"

"I… Well what does that have to do with anything? You—you're not making any sense, Sam. And it wasn't _all_ my fault."

Sam cried. Her face contorted in hopelessness and she wrung her hands, making one last appeal for him to see what she saw. Danny didn't or couldn't, but he was sorry. She turned away and raced off into the forest.

"Sam, wait! I—"

"Women." Alex leaned against the back of a tree nearby, a slow smirk growing on his face. Danny struggled between Alex and Sam.

"Relax. I'm sure she's not too keen on seeing you again too soon." Alex chuckled as Danny glared daggers at him. "You should see yourself right now. Teenagers! You guys are nuts."

Danny pursed his lips. "I'm nuts? _I'm_ nuts? What are you, the standard for sanity?"

Alex sighed and dropped the smile. "You're also not very appreciative." He rolled his eyes at Danny's startled skepticism. "You think you're in trouble with her now. What do you think would have happened if I hadn't dropped by? If Sam had let you fuck her?" The smile reappeared. "Answer me that."

"We'd have done just fine."

"Yes, and if you'll excuse me I've got to go check the stock prices NO YOU MORON YOU WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN FINE!" He shook his head, kicking idly at the earth. "You can never underestimate human intelligence."

"Don't yell at me, and don't call me a moron," Danny snapped.

"Or what. You'll punch me?"

He sighed. "Just don't."

"Fair enough."

Danny stood there, unsure of what to say or do. "What do you mean, 'a favor', anyway? Since when do you think of anybody but yourself?"

"There are, you know, some kinds of pain even I can't enjoy."

Danny highly doubted that, but Alex looked sincere for once. He wished Sam was around. She would have had an idea of what that meant, at the very least.

"I'm not going to say thank you."

"I'd be mortified if you did." Alex tilted his chin into the air, almost sniffing it. Satisfied, he turned back to Danny. "You might want to go after Sam. If I'm not mistaken, she was heading towards town, and I think my partners in crime have caught wind of her. Or, at least, I have caught wind of them, which probably means..." Alex stopped talking.

Danny had gone. Obviously the little hero wasn't quite as thick about that consideration as he was about the truncated screwing session. Alex put his hands in his pockets and strolled in the general direction of Amity.

XXX

Danny shot by the trees, and after a short burst of flight he spotted a road snaking along the ground, then a few scattered houses. Alex had been right. They were right on the edge of town, but he hadn't been able to see it for the trees. With any luck the goo hadn't reached this area, or at least it might be thinner. Danny touched down, keeping an eye out for the goo. Alex had also said that it was lurking around, and Danny was willing to bet that as snide as that jerk was, he definitely knew his black goos.

"Sam! Sam, I'm sorry!" Silence. Somewhere, a stick cracked; a leaf fell. A trickle of water leaked off the road from a busted main. Looking around, Danny saw that several of the houses and their surrounding underbrush had been burnt black. His breath caught. Those houses could be soaked in the goo and he'd never know it until it was right on top of him.

"Sam, if you can hear me, you have to come here. I've got to get you out of here!" He waited, standing stock-still for a reply.

Danny clenched his teeth, wondering why he'd ever wanted to go back. He couldn't take this stuff on directly, and now things were worse than before. A half hour ago, Danny would have honestly sworn that such a thing as 'worse' was impossible. "Sam!" he hollered, but not even his echo bounced back. Danny looked back at the burnt houses nervously, and he brightened. If he could sense Alex, then maybe through Alex he could sense that black stuff. Danny focused on the terrain, willing himself to see something. It didn't work. He could only sense varying concentrations of dread in every direction. Acting on a hunch, Danny chose the direction that gave him the most irrational fear and plunged on ahead.

"Sam!" Where there was darkness, there might be life.

"Danny?" A distant reply, but a blessed reply nonetheless.

Danny jumped into the air and bolted forward. "Hold on, I'm coming!"

"I think you'd better hurry..."

Danny caught up with her in the middle of a road several blocks over. The area still had houses and trees thoroughly intermixed, but almost every house had been burnt to the ground, the intervening hedges and shrubbery untouched. Each house had burnt by its own fire, leaving the skeletal remains to glare down at the two survivors like stern judges. A sky the color of dungeon shackles shed hard, sour light on them, and the road, cracked and pitted from the heat of the fires, rustled under their feet. A shiver rippled up Danny's spine. When the two of them spoke, it was in whispers.

Sam moved closer, but she was careful not to touch Danny. "I didn't see exactly where I was running, and I got... Here."

"That's okay. I don't think we should fly out of here, though." Danny didn't like the way the naked cinders reached upwards. "We have to walk a ways, first. Stay close, and walk very slowly."

Danny led the way, the two of them glancing every way, as they began to back out of the street. "Easy..." Danny muttered. One house, formerly a two story but now a skinny stick-frame that lorded over a pile of blackened wood, almost looked like it was bending. Danny didn't take his eyes off it. The brick fireplace rising from its front had pieces missing at the top, and as Danny watched, the brick-and-mortar fireplace groaned, stretching itself into an arch to point its gaping, black-stained crumbling mouth at the two of them.

"S-Sam, RUN!"

"Danny!" Sam screamed as a limb of blackness swept her up off the street. Danny ignored the chimney and jumped up after her, grasping for her hands.

"Let her go!" Danny fired beam after beam into the blackness, cutting it into holes to make his way after Sam. "Don't worry, I'll get you." Sam nodded mutely. The blackness had multiplied from a single stringy tentacle into a virtual lake of roiling fury that covered the width of the street and extended far down its length. The blackness swept Sam along in it, always keeping her just out of Danny's reach. It flew up at him time after time and Danny always burned away its strokes, repulsing every one of its attacks as his body glowed with plasma. His evasions were no victory, for as he lunged after Sam, her eyes began to glaze over.

"Sam, no! I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of this." He could see her struggling behind the mask of apathy, fighting as bravely as she must have fought that first time Alex had caught her.

"We have to get through this, and you have to come out of there. Sam, please!"

Something in her eyes sparked. Her hand shot out and his shot forward. Danny caught her and held tight. No matter how the blackness shook him, he would not let her go, but no matter how much Danny pulled or burned with his plasma, neither would the blackness release its hold on Sam. From her dimming eyes, Sam watched him fighting his first losing battle. "Danny," she whispered.

He jerked toward her voice and their eyes locked, and then came something that no amount of supernatural evils or hormonal impulses could ever re-create. Without saying a word, Danny told her he was really, truly, sorry. The emotion spilled through his eyes and into her mind. Without a word Sam said that it didn't matter, that it wasn't his fault, and that no matter what happened to either them or the world, she loved him and wanted him to persist. For an instant each of them caught a glance at eternity in the diamond of the other's mind, and before the blackness ripped Sam away from him, before it struck her down and before Alex came out to give his own dreadful commentary, Danny and Sam exchanged heart's words.

Danny wanted her to know he was sorry. He wanted her to see how he'd tried and that he knew that he'd failed, failed completely, and that now it would be death for them all. He showed her everything he'd fought for, the fun times when they'd go to the movies with Tucker, the cool times when something amazing or astonishing would happen, things like salvations and resurrections and truces with enemies and laughter with friends and the secure, confident place as a member of a family or among best friends. But Danny had failed to save his family, his friends, and his city. He had failed, and those things had now left him.

Sam wanted Danny to know that such things were still alive. She conjured a brilliant white orchid in her memory and made him see its dew-dropped petals, then a sunset to show him the pink and gold brilliance of the heavens. She showed him the form of a little brown spider in the middle of a spiraling web that she used to keep in a corner of her bedroom, and she gave him the emotion of love without lust, as it had started in the beginning between the two of them. Such things she framed and took down off Memory's walls, packaged them carefully and gave them to Danny, and she gave him a true paradox: that as long as he loved these things and those like them, never would he lose them.

Then the blackness took her and the instant had gone, and Danny came to himself flat on his back on the ground, holding the hand of a corpse. He heard Alex padding up the road behind him, but he didn't feel it necessary to move.

"You hear that screaming in your head? That's the last of your idealism dying."

Danny paid no attention to him. He looked at the sky, really looked at it, searching for the beauty that Sam had brought to light. Alex came into his field of vision, but Danny didn't look at him.

"Hey. You brain dead?" Alex bent forward to wave a hand over Danny's face. He caught it and shoved Alex away. "As interesting for me as it would be to find you brain dead in a violent way, I'd rather have a response from you. I suppose I'm going to get the blame for _this_ fiasco, too."

Alex was reading from a script, speaking hollow words relevant to nobody. Danny stood up and brushed himself. "You really don't have any idea about anything, do you?"

Alex merely glanced pointedly at Sam's body. "I know people die."

"You mean you know how to kill people."

Alex nodded. "That too."

Danny paused, digesting that, considering it in terms of what Sam said. "I don't think that counts. Can you make anything?"

"When that thing dropped you, did you land on your head?" Alex chuckled uneasily. "You sound like you've got some kind of screw loose."

"No... I'm okay. I just don't feel so bad anymore."

Alex laughed. "Ah. So you are nuts, then."

As he looked down at Sam, Danny's hand moved automatically to brush away her hair. But he stopped himself. She was gone. He turned back to what was, so far as he was concerned, the only other living thing on the planet. "Could you have prevented this?"

"Of course not!" Alex snapped. "I mean, probably not." He paused. "Maybe."

Danny looked up at him. "Can you try?"

Alex scowled, lost and a little indignant. He waited for more specifics, but none came. "I guess I could try. For all the good it'll do."

Danny looked back at Sam. "Thanks."

With a final anxious pause, Alex moved away, disappearing into the forest. "I'll find you," he called. "If or when I finish." Danny nodded. After a time, he left Sam's body where it was and floated back up over the forest and the grass, landing at the bottom of the hill where Alex had cracked his thermos. Danny dropped down and changed to human, continuing up on foot. The hill sloped up gradually, not too difficult, but the scattered rocks and tall, gangly weeds made it a fair challenge. Danny reached its round, bare top and sat down, looking over the landscape, up at the iron clouds and over at the swirling blackness. The fields' sharp gold colors were muted by the dim light.

Danny felt like he was ready. He still couldn't admit to himself precisely what he was ready for, but the fact that it was necessary to be ready made him sad. He'd miss this place, but at least wherever Sam was, soon, he would be there too.

* * *

A/N: Thanks to all reviewers; you guys keep me on track with this thing. Opinions (both good and bad) are welcome.  



	25. Words I Used to Say

A/N: The last exclusively Alex chapter. W00tness. W00tness also to reviewers. I am happy you enjoy this, and I am also pleasantly surprised that nobody chewed me out for that borderline smut scene last chap. Just so everybody knows, it is okay to hate or like Alex. I didn't build him to be black and white in this story. Also, most of you groovy dudes seem to think that Danny is fairly doomed here. If I wanted to advertize myself, I'd tell you that you'll have to wait for the climax, which will happen in the next chapter, to see the truth about that. But of course I'll be strictly professional and say no such thing.

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 25: Words I Used to Say

Alex stalked off into the forest, confused and frustrated and generally furious with no one in particular. It was the fricken' _end of the world_ and _still _nothing made any sense. Danny was one of the hero types and Alex never had been able to understand that small segment of the population except as misguided optimists. He knew something had been exchanged between the two humans just before Sam went, and it bothered him as to what exactly that could be. Alex didn't even know what he was doing out here in some abandoned forest. He couldn't use anything in here, but he had told Danny that he'd try _something_.

It was just that he didn't have any idea what.

After walking some distance and coming to no conclusion whatsoever, Alex found a small glen and stopped. Here the thin light of the clouds had managed to reach the ground, and it seemed like a good place to stop and think. He laid down on his stomach, rested his head on his fists, and stared off into the dim forest beyond.

What did he really want to do? Not save the world, that was certain. Alex was pretty sure it was beyond saving anyway. The rock's goo hadn't been half as excited as the city's, and he'd had a pretty good idea of what the rock looked like before forcibly dissolving it. Even then, it had taken him quite a long time to reform it. Still, it seemed like he should be able to try something. After all, he definitely had a kind of sixth sense when it came to the fifth force. Especially with the black goop. He didn't know what he could do with the main destructor cloud-force-thing, seeing as his mind had been… occupied with other matters at the moment of its last visitation.

Alex groaned. Logic sucked. This world sucked. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to know what had happened for him to deserve this—ALL of this, and from the beginning. It was the end of the world and Alex didn't even know who he was that he should die. He wanted to know, and he used his link with the blackness to tell it as much. And like a computer, albeit a very snide self-satisfied computer, it assigned him an ambiguous direction and an undisclosed location and suggested that he go there. And Alex, on an impatient impulse, followed it.

It took him miles and miles away. Alex didn't know where or how far it was going, but from the landscapes flashing by below he guess it was at least several states over. The trail ended at a three-story compound built of stained cream-colored cement blocks. It could have been an above-ground bomb shelter were it not for the ornamental pattern of white cement above its main entrance. A naked flagpole stood out in front, and a small patch of grass lay inside a circle that went from the road to the building and back to the road, allowing for easy pickup and dropoff. A sign of heavy, swollen wood declared it a school, but the official name had been scratched off and replaced so many times that only the board remained.

A bug-eyed Alex stood paralyzed on the grass in front of it. 'New Grounds High School,' he thought. That name was almost funny, but he was certain it was the right one. He also knew that, in a storage closet off the main counseling offices, there was a yearbook for every year the school had been open.

New Grounds had still been open when the black stuff hit, that much was obvious from the bodies Alex had to step over to reach the glass doors of the front entrance. He knew it was in disrepair because nobody wanted to go to it, even so many years later. Another school had been built for the rich kids, but New Grounds had taken the inner city alcoholics, druggies, and simply unlucky ones. Several of the bodies lying on the roads, the grass, and the steps of the building had puddles of clotted blood spilled beside them, and spikes of black junk curled up from the roof. The place must have been a war zone by the time it was hit.

Alex's curiosity beat out his mortification. Working on autopilot, he stepped over the bodies, phased through the glass doors and turned left, into the office hallway. Yellow signs with black lettering announced the attendance office, cashier's desk, and registrar, but there was nothing that said 'counseling.' Alex scrounged around in the attendance office, coming up with a flashlight which, miraculously, still worked. From there it was a simple matter of digging through closets until he found the right one, which, eventually, he did.

A box of cruddy, mildewed yearbooks sat on the rusted shelf of a gray metal bookcase. Alex phased it out of the locked closet and upended the box, dumping the yearbooks across the floor. 1930s sounded about right. Continuing mechanically, acutely aware that taking any kind of opinionated stance on this matter would probably incapacitate him, Alex flipped through the books, nonchalantly ignoring the billions of memory's little warning lights going off in his head. He opened the '33-'34 book, a squicky feeling growing worse in his chest.

There, in the middle of a cluster of grinning, scowling, nose-picking freshman, Alex spotted a familiar face. He traced it to the list of names which scrolled down the margin.

"'Alex Gardener.'"

His last name was Gardener. Alex sat back on his heels. Gardener. He never would have guessed it.

Something moved at his legs, knocking Alex out of his astonishment. He yelped to see that he was fairly surrounded by the black goo, which stretched several feet deep all up and down the hallway. It rolled up in a wave that touched the ceiling as Alex scrambled back. It crashed down and smothered him.

The stuff struck his brain like a gong, measuring the resonance before striking again. Alex squeezed his eyes shut as the blackness extracted the information necessary for reconstruction, and, before Alex could stop it, his eyes flashed open and there were living people in the office. Polite women manned the attendance and registration windows, a disgruntled cashier chatted amiably with a hall guard, and somebody that sounded remarkably like him was laughing somewhere nearby.

Alex looked to his feet. The yearbooks were gone, and a kid in the hallway had just walked right through him. The black stuff must have found the rest of his memories.

Feeling a little strange at this but figuring he should be used to anything by now, Alex followed the sound of his own laughter into a cluttered meeting room off a side hallway. A slightly chunky, good humored senior boy had taken out some of the older yearbooks. She sat at a table across from a shorter, happier, less destructive version of himself. The senior was one of the school's junior counselors, and the yearbooks had been the ice-breaker between them. Alex's vision clouded, and when it cleared, there was himself and the senior having a violent argument several weeks later.

Alex watched himself get the upper hand in the back-and-forth struggle, just like he always did. He'd always been pretty good at winning arguments, in spite of the claim that such a thing was impossible.

Fragments of memories passed before him. Himself being a loser, himself not having any friends and blaming everybody else for it, himself flunking out of school in disgust and ending up at junior college. Then, himself discovering that people in junior colleges were even more retarded than in high school, and himself returning to high school on the first day of the next year and killing everybody with the help of his newfound blackness, which he had accumulated over time, almost without even realizing it until it had owned him. All in all, it was pretty much what Alex had expected to see, but it still surprised him, and disappointed him just a bit, to discover that yes this actually really had been all his fault in the first place.

It seemed logical at the time, he remembered, but then those things usually did. If people hadn't been so insufferably stupid he never would have gone to the dark side in the first place. Alex couldn't think what he could have done to stop it, but there must have been something. If there was, he didn't know what.

The blackness dinged like a game show buzzer. The school flashed away and was replaced with a world, then with a thousand world. Alex watched every one of them rot among the stars, infected with blackness. Earth snapped up, and image superposed on the former scene. The clumsy technique revealed a powerful message. These things were happening because Earth's number had come up. It wasn't personal, it was just business. This thing destroyed universes, tidied the slate whenever it got too cluttered or chaotic, and that was that. It was nothing personal; it was just business. Business according to a malevolent, barely-conscious force that probably never should have existed in the first place.

Alex felt the stuff pulling out of his head like spaghetti being pulled through his nose. His eyes cleared and the hallway came back into focus, empty now. Dead silence echoed throughout the building.

Alex's hands clenched into fists. A twitch brought his lips into a snarl, and he wished ardently for the skill and power to blow the blackness apart, to shatter it like a Ming vase against a brick wall. Alex buried his foot in the wall's plaster and roared, punched out the glass windows of the offices and sent shards of glass scattering. The glass tinkled against the floor and the broken-in walls puffed dust, but after each blow the silence returned, inevitably, as it always had.


	26. Ghosts in the Machine

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Chapter 26: Ghosts in the Machine

A periodic rustling of the grass nearby caught Danny's ear as he looked out over a small cliff. He glanced over to see Alex top the hill, but at his inquisitive look Alex only dropped his eyes and shook his head. Danny turned back to his view. He'd expected as much.

The wind had picked up in the last couple hours. The sky stayed as black and harsh as ever, obscuring view of sky or sun, the harsh light blending with the shadows. He hadn't seen a single animal since he'd hiked up here, not even a bird. Time had all but lost itself amid the piles of black on the horizon, but it didn't take a genius to know that time no longer existed in abundance.

Alex knew that, too, probably better than Danny himself. The older ghost stood stolidly at a distance, glaring out into nothing. Danny wondered where he'd gone and come back from, but he supposed it didn't really matter anyway. Like as not, Alex would find some way to mock him for asking, and Danny wasn't up for that. He hadn't slept since before Alex had broken him out of the thermos, and as much as Danny wished he could face this with calm resolution, which is what Sam would have wanted, Danny had only grown more restless as the hours passed. He couldn't help it. This was like a conversation destined to remain forever unfinished. Danny would never know if he could have stopped either Alex or this black stuff. He'd never know why he'd been saved in the thermos during his town's destruction or why something saw fit to arrange for his freedom once it was safe. Likewise would remain the mystery of Alex and the lesser jerks like him, how they got to where they were, why they did the things they did. Danny reconsidered. He could live with that last mystery. Motives raised an eyebrow, but actions changed the world.

Something cracked in the distance, a sound like the sky splitting from the earth at its horizons, shredding the silence like the quick slash of a chainsaw before allowing it to solidify once more.

Alex snorted. "Not long at all, now. We'll be the last, or at least, _I_ will."

"Are you proud of that?" Danny's voice sounded disembodied to his own ears.

"I'd rather have been the first."

The sky started to lighten. The whole earth stretched out below his lookout point—from the city on the horizon to the sharp green forest, over the rippling fields and up the hillside's rocks, it all began to shine with the brightest of lights, like something incisive and brilliant had been turned on the world, seeing through its color and form and reflecting instead off its heart, lighting and being lit in the process. In spite of the brightness, Danny felt no discomfort. The change had happened in himself as well, producing a gasping space, not a void but a basin, somewhere inside him. The world around him began to shimmer and glitter, and he felt the first mental wounds as the deconstructing force went to work on his mind.

XXX

Alex had seen it too, the miraculous lightening of the land, and he could see the familiar glittering cloud clear as day when it descended on the hilltop, coating the sky and everything under it. The shimmering air picked up Danny's body and splashed him with black flecks as it tore away his mind, the flecks growing into covering blackness. Alex backed away as the ground below and the land beyond spotted with the same black flecks which quickly grew into pools lakes and oceans of blackness as the last human being on earth dissolved into nothing. As the blackness spread over the earth below, something else started to happen.

The light got brighter.

Although the blackness spread, the light simultaneously got brighter.

Alex blinked and rubbed a hand across his eyes. He wasn't seeing things. The light _was _getting brighter, and in a final searing flash it torched away the physical. Alex's psychological processes took a flying leap into infinity and turned up on the other side of reality. The land and its creeping blackness had gone, replaced with shimmering blankets of electromagnetic forces and churning storms of photons. A chaotic jumble of infinitely small clear things bumped and rocked one another in the space overhead, but beyond that lay a field of something thick and rich and protective. Past that, mostly emptiness, but Alex could sense things burning. Tiny things from far away told him that other things too large for any man's imagination burned and exploded, imploded and punched holes in reality as they traversed the sky above.

Alex gulped. He'd seen some of this before, daydreamt about things like this when he was still in high school. _He knew what this was._

Step by step he tagged the things with names. It could only be stars, those huge exploding things he could sense. Their messengers were neutrinos of all different colors, and the things directly above him, that clear, photon-obscuring jumble—those were clouds. The thing between the clouds and the stars… Alex knew he knew it. He could see its purpose, to bounce off the spitfire cosmic rays and solar winds, which didn't look at all like wind, more a storm of Diana's arrows, but he supposed that might be a wind of sorts… Magnetic field. That's what that deflector thing was, the earth's magnetic field, and the aurora borealis didn't hold a candle to the full-fledged thing itself. The thing, and everything for that matter, stretched into dimension upon microscopic dimension and as Alex tuned his vision up, he saw them all merging into one great curling colorful _thing_. The Grand Unified Theory personified, he guessed. It looked like everything in the world that had ever made him smile, and it moved like a mathematical proof. Alex remembered buzzing through those things like nobody's business in geometry class, following logical step after step after step… That was how this moved. Proving itself, using its ectoplasmic derivatives and guided by a will of sorts, to force it down into reality, into tangible things like tables and chairs and sunbeams and human beings. Alex could have spent the rest of his life gaping at it.

Not that that was really saying much, he remembered with a jolt. If he could see like this, then as beautiful as it all was, bad things were about to happen. Danny himself, Alex saw, was pretty much dead already. Feeling like the world's most psychotic telescope he adjusted his vision, back to where the ectoplasmic and the solid things merged. A question from him produced a long-forgotten answer, roughly drudged up from his high school investigations.

'…proxy waves. Elementary particles and, quite probably, all large objects, have a corresponding proxy wave. This wave gives a layout of all possible positions for a particle. This is necessary because particles do not move like rolling soccer balls. They move like magic things, spontaneously appearing and disappearing at will. Proxy waves are able to tell us the **probability** that a particle will "appear" at a given spot. However, definite predictions are impossible. The best science can ever do with quantum mechanics is approximate.'

Even so, science had been able to do some pretty amazing quantum things, TV being one of them. They never had been able to determine whether the proxy wave was real—something that could be visualized, or just a useful theoretical device. Alex could recall the name of at least one scientist who thought it was real, though he'd been widely received as a crackpot.

'Before a measurement, a particle can be represented only as a probability. According to science, without the ability to measure it, a particle does not exist. Humans measure particles unconsciously all the time: particles of water are measured as rain from the sky, particles of ash as a breath of smoke rising from a chimney. However, until we have some way of "looking" at them, the rain may be belching from the chimney and the smoke might be cascading from the clouds. Before you "look" at everyday objects, there is a very small probability that they could be anywhere at all.

'Objects choose their positions during the process of a measurement, though they follow the direction of the proxy wave when choosing where to appear. The proxy wave identifies possible locations and guides the object into one of them. The mystery of precisely how a proxy wave "decides" where to put its object—which one of the many probable spots to choose—is called decoherence and has remained an inscrutable mystery to modern science, and many dismiss the matter as a problem for metaphysics.'

Alex chuckled. At the moment, he was something of a problem for metaphysics, too. Logically, he shouldn't be able to see any of this crazy stuff and only did because he'd been modified to carry around that black goo and open a transdimensional portal, so he might as well check out this 'decoherence' crap.

With a little squinting, Alex managed it. The ectoplasm was bumping the matter into this or that place within the boundary of the proxy wave equation, but until it had been officially bumped into reality, the stuff stayed invisible on the higher-dimensional planes. Alex stuck his hand out. Apparently his limbs followed the same elevation as his vision, because he could 'bump' things around too, disregarding the automated process, which were done by the fifth force with a little help from other, less destructive processes. That 'sparkle-air-and-black-goo' force was the one primarily in charge, though. Hardly thinking about it, Alex made an atom of oxygen disappear on one side of the field and reappear on the other side. He did it again with something larger, one of the boulders. It appeared on the other side of the field as well, still without much effort. The experiments took no time at all. His mind had jacked itself up to light speed. He took a good truckload of dirt from the ground, modified it for ectoplasmic effectiveness, and threw it into the sparkling air. The sparkle hiccupped and continued as normal.

Alex's eyes boggled and his mouth, or the higher dimensional equivalent of it, dropped open. If he could make this thing hiccup, maybe he could stop it entirely. He'd need something larger, something more powerful, something he wouldn't have to waste time adjusting and converting. Alex would never be able to bring it down by hand. He'd need something faster, more efficient, something that generated plasmic substances naturally that he wouldn't have to waste hardly any time calibrating. What he needed was something like—

"DANNY!"

XXX

It was a lot like falling asleep, in a really painful, horrible, torturous way. Danny's only consolation was that at least it was almost over, but he couldn't keep his mind on that long enough for it to give him any kind of relief. He'd lost his vision completely but Danny could feel that thing ripping him apart, just like the goop had with Sam. It came as a complete surprise when something started trying to yank him back together. Danny yelped at the sensation. Something buzzed in his ear. Too weak to talk, Danny wondered what it was.

"Shit, goddamn this transdimensional—Is that you ya little moron?"

A mild wave of confusion breached the pain.

"It's Alex, dipshit. Wake up right now and start getting really pissed off. NOW, I said. I can't hold you together on my own!"

More confusion. Alex must be reading his mind somehow… but why…?

"We can save the world but if you just lie down and DIE then the world's going with it!"

Danny flared up like a firework at that. Alex laughed—Danny still couldn't see a thing—as he skimmed off the generated power and threw it up like a shield. Danny's mind snapped together like opposite poles of a magnet. "That barrier isn't going to hold for long," Alex shouted. "So we need to get something straight right now. First, we can kill it, or at least explode the universe, which is just as good so far as I'm concerned."

"Isn't the universe exploding a _bad _thing?"

"Not if the people blowing it up are already dead meat anyway. Shut up and listen. Second, we're going to have to cooperate completely or something will screw up and we'll blow ourselves sky high, got it?"

"Uh…"

"I'll take that as a yes. The catch is that we're kind of going to have to share brains for a little while."

"I have a problem with that."

"Don't be such a whiner. I can't do a thing without your power and you can't see a thing without my targeting instructions."

The link was forged in a second leaving a tingle in the back of Danny's mind. A map of blurry light reached his mind. At roughly the same time, Danny realized that his body had gone missing. "What happened to my body?"

"I think you'd better not ask."

"Okay." Danny sensed Alex's mind whirring at a million miles a minute just beneath his own, only muted, like sitting in a car going over a bumpy bit of highway. "Are you sure about this?" The whirring quickened to a humming that made Danny extremely nervous. Save for the light blur, he couldn't see a thing…

Alex ignored his question. "Okay. I think I know what I'm doing now. You might want to uh, kinda brace yourself a little bit…"

Before Danny could ask what exactly Alex meant by that, he rocketed forward in the direction of a spinning, flashing, gut-wrenching nowhere that put a big ball of vomit right at the back of the throat he, fortunately, no longer had. It spun him around like a sock in a clothes drier or a speck of dirt on a boat's motor fins only much, much worse. "What are you DOING!"

"Amplifying your output."

Danny didn't want to know what that meant. He clenched his teeth and sat back for the ride. Just when it seemed like he was going to faint or pass out or just plain drop dead, just when the shield Alex had built was about burst open wide, the spinning stopped and Danny found himself absolutely weightless, but he definitely didn't feel any better. "Alex…?"

"You're going to hit something in a second. When you do, I want you to blow it up like a fucking hydrogen bomb."

"I'm feeling kind of sick right now."

"Well if the imagery helps, puke like a fucking hydrogen bomb. I don't care which you do so long as the thing you hit starts to break when it happens."

Danny flew through nothing with baited breath, waiting to hit this mysterious thing he was supposed to explode, and when he did it felt more like being caught in a tangle of delicate threads than the brick wall he'd been expecting. It felt nice, kind of, but the ensuing sensations were not. Something did a one eighty in his head and dropped into his stomach, and at the same time, his psychological taught skin shrank violently down on his psychological skeleton. In was a little like being put in a juicer with dynamite exploding in his guts, but the web disintegrated, and then Danny was on the move again, starting to spin and get nauseous while Alex whooped in his ears.

"That was fan-TASTIC! Did you see that? I guess you couldn't have, but it was… It was really, really cool. We can do it. We can… Oh shit."

Danny started. "What? What's happening?"

"It's reconstruction. Shit. We're going to have to work faster."

"No! I can't take any faster."

"I know that." A sound like teeth grinding ensued. Alex kept him circling at a steady rate, using the constant energy to keep the opposing force at bay. It was taking more and more effort, and even Danny could tell that the odds were getting slimmer. "Why don't you let me try this?"

"Try what?"

"You give me some of your power, just enough to see where I'm going. I could sense things you couldn't in there. I can hit closer to the target." It was true, and they both knew it. A perspective from the inside of the enemy was always more precise.

"…but you're a moron. You'll screw it up somehow."

"Shut up and give me the damn power, Alex."

Alex complied. The lights brightened and sharpened into shapes, waves that stood in for matter, Alex told him. Proxy waves. "Use your instincts. You won't know the names of everything you see, but you'll know its purpose, and that's enough for our purposes." He snickered. "I made you swear."

"That was your bad influence."

"I'm sure it was."

"It was! And why are you wasting time? Rev me up."

The cycling started again, same as before, Alex doing whatever it was he did to multiply Danny's already present potential. Whatever it is wasn't any worse the second time around, but the targeting-power boost made it more difficult to handle. Danny didn't say anything to Alex, though the feeling got transmitted instantly between them. Alex returned it with skepticism, something to the effect of 'crybaby.' He launched Danny shot free once more, and the halfa landed in the same web, recently regenerated, but before he let the bomb go off he dug farther into it. He came upon a junction, lots of wirey sparky thunderingly noisy things, and then he let the juicer-dynamite rip over him.

"That was a little better," Alex said.

Danny took his time recovering. "You jerk. That was a _lot _better than last time."

"Fine. Let's just see you do it again."

Danny did do it again. And again, and again, and again, and he started to get used to it. Back and forth, time after time, web after web, but these were new webs, now. Alex only shot him back to the same structure once or twice. The rest of the time it was done right the first time, and as the two practiced, the action became a routine, growing more efficient as they got used to manipulating each others minds. The stressful back-and-forth arguments disappeared entirely, and Danny occupied himself with his work, strengthening his resilience to the power and working on tolerating higher levels of energy. Alex retreated completely into himself, ceasing to mouth off and concentrating solely on making the necessary navigation adjustments.

Danny lost track of how many times Alex had thrown him out, but he never got bored with it. Rarely was the ride smooth to the most efficient point of detonation. When Danny shot out to strike this time, though, he started to hear a kind of odd static, like a radio on the wrong station.

"Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"What's that?"

Danny hit another web and did his thing. Alex was ready with an answer when he sent Danny into another charging orbit. "Not sure, but I think it's a good thing. Stuff is starting to look a lot less distinct on my levels."

Something in his thoughtful tone made Danny nervous. "Would you remind me again of what the goal here is, exactly?"

"To take the universe out with us?"

Danny felt a faint hesitation as Alex launched him back out, a human shot-put. "I thought you said we could save it."

"I thought maybe we could. Now I think the best thing we can do is take it down with us."

"Since when was that the plan?" Danny tried in vain to skid to a halt. There was nothing to skid on. He was over empty space. "That makes us just as bad as this stuff!"

Alex's voice came from a distance. "I don't think so… It doesn't matter anyway. This should be the last one."

"The last what?" Silence. Danny felt the shared undercurrent running faster with his own anxiety and whatever Alex was thinking. Something cogent popped up from it, but Danny couldn't catch it in time. There was something about a psychiatrist, but nothing that made any sense to him. Alex's part of the line had gotten muddled with something rigid and inflexible, logic dipped in concrete. "Alex, the last what? I'm not going to blow up the world."

"Actually you'll be blowing up the universe, but you don't exactly have a choice. Don't worry about it. I'm pretty sure this will all work out fine, anyway."

Danny wondered what was 'fine' according to Alex, but he didn't have time to ponder it. Danny crashed into another web, this one thicker than the others. He tried to use his sight to maneuver away, but Alex had taken the sight back and left him blind again.

"No!" Danny couldn't help it. He could give up and let the power explode, or he could die and the power would explode anyway. Straining, Danny did what he could to mute the effect and pushed the panic button, that big red button he'd always seen in the movies, the one marked 'total nuclear annihilation.' His skin shrunk and the destructive power aching in his chest blew out and up and left the web in tatters. But this time, even without his vision, Danny could sense the whole thing dissolving.

"Alex?" He couldn't feel the other ghost anymore. Around him the web collapsed, and something groaned on the air, both impossibly distant and remarkably close by. The sound emanated and echoed from everywhere around him.

"We did it, Danny. We kicked its ass."

"Alex! Where are you?"

The groaning became a screeching, and it wasn't coming from Alex. Danny didn't think it would sound this bad had he knocked out a critical support pillar from a twenty story hotel building. Things that Danny couldn't begin to identify started to shiver and fizz all around him, sending a multitude of unpleasant sensations up what had been passing for his spine lately. If the fizzing creeped him out, then what came next terrified him. Things started to shrink that weren't supposed to shrink, space itself contracted and heaved as time raced back and forth indecisively, everything accelerating and whirling as all things tangible and intangible dropped through a hole in space, a hidden void beneath, catching Danny up with it. He tried to catch hold of something, but once again his grabs met the dead void.

Panic blasted him. His body was gone and Alex had betrayed him and the universe was imploding and nothing made sense! He was in a tunnel but he'd hit a flat plane and something would change his mind and throw him up and down and back and forth until Danny forced his spectral senses closed against the booming colors and racing lights and waited.

When it came, the silence arrived like thunder: a few crackling noises, and then absolute silence. Or close enough to it.

"Ugh…"

Danny opened his eyes to see Alex materializing in front of him, complete with arms, legs, and an expression somewhere between high and… high. "That. Was. FUN." Alex shook himself loosely, a goofy grin on his face. "Or at least really really interesting."

Danny discovered he had hands again. He was overjoyed to see them, and he hugged himself protectively, not daring to look around just yet. "Are we dead?"

"No." Alex yawned, gesturing vaguely to a spot that Danny couldn't see. "The universe is reconstructing itself, sans the blackness thread. I think that's what it's doing, anyway." Alex squinted at the blur. "It kind of hard to tell from this distance. Our world lines stop here, so… The point is that we'll be deconstructed and reinserted once it hits the point where you first saw the black stuff. Where you met me, I guess."

Danny got the sense Alex's 'universe' was in a dimension he couldn't see, at least not from this place of limbo. Danny swore he'd never take three-dimensional objects for granted again. "So what happened? What'd we do?"

"Nothing but the big bang in reverse. I put too much energy in too many places and physics had a breakdown." Alex laughed. "Not something that can be cured with Prozac, but it's doing well enough on its own, I think."

Danny looked at the blur. It stretched all over under their feet. He didn't know what they stood on, but it was solid and transparent, and that was something to be thankful for. To the sides and up above lay a rich, grayish darkness that felt more like a security blanket than an evil entity. "So things worked out okay? No more problems."

"No more black stuff, no more problems." Alex shimmered faintly. "I can kind of see something else happening. All over the place."

"Like what?"

"The black stuff. As a part of the physical system, it must have been part of other universes, too. Or at least some of them, depending on their topology and the way their symmetry broke."

"Whatever that means. So what's _happening_?"

Alex grinned, still shimmering as he looked beyond Danny. "It's deleting itself. Those that already have things like me are unraveling, and those that haven't been activated yet are simply quietly deleting that component."

Danny nodded, daring to let relief leak into his adrenaline-charged tension. "That's good."

"Mmyep."

They both watched, waiting for their own world to finish fixing itself. Alex had a very nice kind of smile on his face, one of mingled pride and joy Danny had never seen on him before. "You really live for this stuff, don't you?"

"Yes. I used to, anyway. Maybe I'll get another chance at it, but I've always loved physics. Used to look up at the sky every morning and imagine the stars going up like the Fourth of July. Very relaxing."

Something in there gave Danny a distinct sense of déjà vu. The psychological bump he'd sensed in Alex's current before they got separated sounded vaguely familiar, and he hadn't had time to think about it at the time. What had it been? Danny tried to remember. Something about a psychologist, he was sure, and the concept carried that same kind of weird warmth as he was getting from him now.

Danny gasped, stabbing an accusing finger at Alex. "You had the hots for my sister!"

Alex grimaced. "That's a lie. That's a horrible wretched lie and—"

"I don't believe it. I never would have believed it." Danny stared at Alex like a zoo animal. "You, I mean, _whoa_."

"You should at least be happy because it kept me from killing your mother. Not that it matters since she ended up dead anyway," he mused.

"Oh, _thank you_, Alex. That makes it all fine and _dandy_ then, doesn't it." Danny slapped his forehead. "I just don't believe it. _You_ and _Jazz_—"

"Look, if it makes you feel any better the feeling wasn't mutual," Alex snapped. He went back to gazing at his universe. "In any case, it's almost at your stop. Get ready for something weird."

The words hung in the air. Danny looked at Alex, smiling flatly. "Was that supposed to be funny?"

Alex was not amused. "Drop it."

Danny glanced down at his fading hands. They lost their solid look, becoming a projection that grew fainter every second "I guess… Thanks Alex. For helping"

Alex rolled his eyes. " Yeah, well. Took me long enough."

"But you did." Danny's voice faded to a whisper as his body phased out. "Just don't do it again."

Alex gulped. "No problem."

Danny winked out of limbo and dropped into the world once more.

* * *

A/N: There's a lot of real science mixed in here, particularly with Alex's proxy waves (more conventionally called psi waves), so I sincerely apologize if any of it was confusing. I tried to do my best. (Psst! The quoted stuff about proxy/psi waves in the middle segment from Alex's POV is all real science. Now if your parents try to tell you that fanfiction is a waste of time, you can tell them that you learned a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics from it. :) )  



	27. Danny Redux

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Danny Redux

Danny floated over the dumpster, shielding his nose from the blast of its stench. "Ugh."

"'Ugh' is right." Tucker glanced anxiously back at the road from the end of the narrow, trash-filled alley, its grimy brick walls imprisoning them on three sides. "Okay. We checked it out. Now let's get out of here before we get mugged."

Danny shuffled some of the trash around with his plasma beams. Banana peels, a mutilated VCR, beer cans… "I was sure something was supposed to happen here. There's been a ton of sightings of that ghost gang right in this area." It didn't look like he'd be sighting anything except dumpster trash tonight. Danny searched the windows of the buildings around them for signs of anything unusual, but Sam quietly spoke up before he could finish the investigation.

Sam's voice wavered. "Turn around, Danny."

He did, and there at the other end of the alley were four ghosts toting a variety of weapons— a chain, some brass knuckles, a knife and a club.

"Four?" Danny was sure he'd heard of five. At least, he thought he'd heard of five.

Tucker and Sam padded back, trying to keep calm in spite of the fact that these ghosts clearly meant business. "I think four ghosts is pretty good. Don't you Sam?" Tucker's voice wavered, and Sam nodded her agreement. Danny flew down and looked them over. They snarled up at him, floating to meet him fifteen feet in the air. If Danny read his ghosts right… He was in trouble. These were humanoid alright, but barely. They were more hyena than human in how they snickered and sneered.

Four of these guys was definitely more than enough. Danny geared up his beams and started shooting as they leaped at him, roaring and swinging their bone-breaking weapons.

XXX

Sam sucked in a breath as she helped Danny to his feet. "You really got hit that time. Are you sure you're okay?"

Danny nodded, his sore neck aching. He zapped human and stretched the parts of his body that didn't hurt too badly. With any luck he'd be better in the morning, but in the meantime he was in desperate need of an ice pack or six. "Ow. Ouch. Yeah, I'm okay." He grimaced as she brushed a tender spot on his shoulder blades, pulling himself away. "That's alright. I'm okay." He leaned against a hallway door, catching his breath. The fight had taken him into an old, oddly familiar apartment building, but at present he didn't care how familiar it looked. Half the buildings on the block looked exactly like this, and he had more immediate things to worry about. Such as, possibly, a cracked rib.

Danny looked up as Tucker thudded up the wooden staircase. "Sorry I'm late."

"How many?" Danny glanced pointedly at the thermos in Tucker's hand.

"Three."

"Three is good." Sam rested a careful hand on Danny's shoulder. "You did great. I mean, for how tough those guys were, that was fabulous." She took a closer look at him. "But you're sure you're alright? I mean, I can always—"

Danny politely brushed her off. "Yes, I'm fine. Really. Let's just get out of here before somebody in here calls the cops."

The three of them managed to leave the building without attracting too much attention. Danny had some trouble on the stairs that required a prop from Sam, who, in Tucker's opinion, looked a little more concerned about Danny than could be explained by his injuries alone. Tucker contented himself with a smug smile as they passed into open air. Sam was too preoccupied to give him a dirty look, and Danny was too distracted to notice anything unusual.

After a block, he could walk well enough on his own. The three friends beat it out of the ghetto and had a good start on heading home when Tucker became inexplicably glued to a newspaper stand. "Anybody got a quarter?"

Sam fished some change out of her pocket and tossed him one. With a clink and a slam, Tucker nabbed the paper and poured over the front page, reading as they continued on their way.

Danny flicked the corner of the page. "Are you going to tell me what's so interesting or should I buy my own paper?"

Tucker rustled the paper shut. "Well, you know. I didn't think _Sam_ would be interested."

She rolled her eyes. "Just tell us."

"G&M is going public next week!" Tucker pointed to a front-page color shot of a couple geezers posed against the company logo, both dressed in the nicest suits and grinning like fools. "They've got a killer new kind of computer coming out. It's supposed to be able to trounce everything made before, even solving this old challenge about the most efficient sales trip a guy can make through all these different random cities, or something like that."

"Wow that's exciting," said Sam, who was clearly not very excited.

"Nah, you don't understand. This thing is built on an entirely new kind of computing technology—quantum computer is what it's called—and these two guys pretty much invented it." Tucker got a starry-eyed look. "Their company is named after 'em, uh…" Tucker snapped his fingers, trying to remember. "Gardener and McKinley! Those're their names. Anyway, they started this company, and everybody thought they were crazy, but now it looks like they'll be millionaires!"

Danny didn't even bother to worry over the familiarity of those names. He must have taken one too many knocks to the head that night. "Your idols, Tuck?"

Tucker folded the paper and stuffed it in his backpack. "You might say that."

Sam laughed, glancing up at the rich blackness of the night. "A millionaire computer wizard. I guess there are worse dreams to follow."

Danny swung his arm leisurely at his side, his fingers just happening to brush Sam's own. Neither of them gave any indication of noticing. He smiled, the bruises and false memories retreating to the wings. "I'm sure there are bad dreams. But not for us." He ignored the puzzled looks from Sam and Tucker and took a breath, glancing at the few pedestrians still out.

Some were kids like him, others middle-aged adults with their hands in their pockets and their hats pulled low. They all had people they cared about and wanted to keep safe, be they families or friends or some mix of both. Maybe some of them had less than others, and maybe they also, like him, took a hard knock every now and then for their sake. Whatever the case, people cared about each other. Danny knew he was being a sap, but he couldn't help finding reassurance in such notions. Without quite knowing why, he felt happy just to be alive.

* * *

A/N: Not over yet. The next chapter really more of a quant aside than an 'official' part of the story, since technically I've resolved everything with this chapter, but I wanna add it in anyway. So there. -delivers spittlicious raspberry- Thanks to all reviewers for your support and glorious compliments, and for not freaking out about the science. I remember trying to give a book report in my freshman English class about a book on string theory I'd just read... Ye gad, glassier eyes I had never seen in my life! So, many cookies to you guys for keeping open minds and clever brains.  



	28. Alex Redux

A/N: Thanks to everybody: Faith's Melody, Gecko Osco, Rakal (w00t for you!), Asilla, Sakura Scout (wherever you are), Nox, and all you little people who fled after my immature little rant back in chapter... Five, I think? Whatever. Anyway, here thar be the end! Joy to the WORLD! For those of you who were curious, in the future I'll be continuing Mars and also posting a new little horror-thing, title undetermined, that should be lots and lots of fun. It has barefooted scrambles through dark spooky forests, a lake-monster-ghost-thing, original characters who are clean out of their minds, and one positively adorable character who secretly wants to kill you. Keep an eye out for it.

Once again, thanks to all for their readership and encouragement; I seriously could not have done it without thee. Here be the final bit of my first completed pseudo-novel.

Sing to Life

By JadeRabbyt

Alex Redux

Five kids sat eating their lunches on a small stack of bleachers fronting the empty sidelines of a football field. The clear sky held a bright, warm sun, and the wind's breeze kept the air at just the right temperature. The kids munched in considerable good-humor, a mood that seemed school wide today. It was a perfect fall afternoon, so it puzzled Arthur's companions when he suggested a suicide mission—or at the least a prelude to an atomic wedgie.

"I'm just saying he might be really helpful for the kinds of stuff we do." Arthur spoke earnestly, his bright blue eyes reflecting the autumn weather.

Tyler slurped his juice, making an unholy racket in the process. "He'd also just as soon break all our arms as look at us. I vote no."

"Ha! That's only half of what he'll do, from what I hear." Billy leaned closer, his amber eyes gleaming. "I hear Alex carries a knife in his back pocket. Switchblade, with one o' them fancy handles. Carved with a nice severed head on it."

Arthur shook his head and shoved him away. His group of five shouted as Billy nearly lost his balance on the top bleacher. He recovered, shooting a scowl at Arthur. "Hey! Watch it."

"Accident." Arthur tossed him a minicookie from his lunch bag in compensation. "You guys are just chicken. That stuff is just rumors, and you all know it."

"Maybe, but everybody believes these rumors." Billy harrumphed. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"He's a senior. We're freshmen. Stick to building rockets with us nerds." Tyler clapped Arthur's knee. "You'll live longer."

"I talked to a junior the other day, says he's known Alex on and off since middle school, and _he_ said that he used to be a decent guy." Arthur gazed out at the hilly brush at the opposite end of the field. "Last he'd heard, Alex had gotten pretty deep into quantum mechanics."

"Quantum mechanics is reserved for European atheists and Americans with bad hair. And your hair is too good for it, Arthur." Tyler ripped a bite out of his sandwich, opening and closing the matter in one decisive bite. "My dad says that stuff is garbage anyway."

Arthur smiled politely as the crumbs dribbled down Tyler's chin. "Maybe your dad the plumber would like a debate with my dad the calculus teacher?"

"Your dad the _junior college_ calculus teacher. My dad had a friend who went to your junior college and he said that his friend said that junior college would give a better education if it _were _taught by plumbers."

Sighing, Billy stood up and stretched his arms, addressing the two silent Floyd twins. "Welp, it's Battle of the Dads again. I'm going for another chocolate milk."

The Floyds chuckled. "Bring me back potato chips," said one of them. They were Jerry and Butch, but nobody could ever tell which of the identical twins was which. They had suffered many a mutual swirly before Arthur picked them up, and neither of them said much, but as the best blue-print readers and the most acute observers they were seconds-in-command. They watched to see what the first-in-command would do about this.

Arthur waved Billy back. "Alright, sit down. We'll stop."

Billy cast him a tolerant warning look and collapsed back on his former seat. "Are you guys going to the junior varsity game on Friday?"

Arthur frowned. "Wait a minute. Let's get back to Alex."

"Let's get one thing straight," Tyler cut in. "I'm not the one who's talking to him." He wiped his mustard-framed mouth with the long sleeve of his turtleneck. "Just to, y'know, be clear on that."

Billy rested his elbows on the bench behind him. "Ya might as well get used to it. Art's going to make us go anyway."

"I'm just saying that maybe we could ask him to a launch, or something. That other rocket will be ready in a week, max. Besides," Arthur added. "Even if all that junk you say is true, it would be more difficult for him to take five of us." He balled up his lunch bag, shot for the garbage can below, and missed. He stood up to go after it. "Come on."

Tyler looked over the rims of his glasses. "Whoa. You mean, right now, go talk to him?"

"Unless you'd like to meet him after school in an empty hallway, sure. Now."

Tyler looked over at the two quiet ones, the Floyd brothers. They sat hunched in their vests and tennis shoes, discreetly pretending to have heard nothing. "You going?"

"Yeah RIGHT! We're staying here."

"Chickens!" Arthur called. He'd already started walking back to the school. "Bawk, bawk bawk bawk bawk _baaaaaawwwwk…_"

Billy grabbed Tyler. "Upsey-daisy, chiggen little. Let's go keep Art from getting stuck in the chest with a switchblade." Tyler made it difficult, coming to his feet reluctantly, but Billy had fifty pounds on him and lugged him up anyway. When Tyler began expressing serious doubts as to whether he was all the way done with his lunch, Billy snatched off his glasses and hurried down the bleacher stairs. Tyler jumped after him, and the two of them raced to catch up with Arthur.

"Oh man," groaned Tyler. "This is such a _bad_ idea."

Arthur suggested checking the third floor hallway, then the library. Usually Alex went between one and the other during lunchtime. Hallway for eating, library for reading or studying. The third floor was always the emptiest of the hallways since the most popular classrooms for eating and socializing were in other wings. As for the library, nobody bothered to investigate what or why he read. Rumor had it he was being kicked out of school his grades were so bad. Alex puzzled Arthur to no end, moreso because, other than Arthur, he was probably the only other kid in school who'd even heard of the Schrodinger equation.

Lunch wasn't half over yet, so they tried the hallway first. Walking along the elevated concrete path and listening to his friends' metaphorical teeth chattering, Arthur realized they must look like a troop of soldiers going into battle. He stopped them outside the open hall doors, out of sight of those within. "Come on, guys. Loosen up. It'll only make it harder if you're all obviously terrified of him."

"You're NUTS!" hissed Tyler. Some kids eating against the iron rail against the walkway looked up at the noise. "I'm going back to the Floyds. They had the right idea, staying on the bleachers."

Arthur motioned for him to quiet down. "Look, he's just a guy, right? Just remember that those stupid rumors aren't true."

"And don't forget you've got me with you," Billy put in. Billy had a blonde crew-cut and stood as tall as the juniors. He had a good reputation, but the student body generally agreed that he was not one to pick a fight with. Of course, a fight with Billy might mean a bloody nose and a nasty shiner for the cheek. A fight with Alex and you risked a hospitalization, and everybody knew it. Billy had just reminded them of it.

"Maybe it wouldn't hurt to plan this a little better," Arthur admitted. "Try it tomorrow, or something."

Tyler nodded emphatically. "I totally, completely agree. We should run this by the Floyds. And, y'know… We can always decide not to do it at all."

"I like way you think." Billy tried his best to sound logical. "Safety first, buckle up, no running with scissors and etcetera etcetera."

Arthur stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Oh, I see how this is going. Next time tomorrow at lunch you guys'll have a club or a practice or something, right?"

"I do have Salsa Club tomorrow, now that you mention it." Tyler squirmed under Arthur's skeptical grin. Billy stifled a laugh. "I don't know what Billy's so happy about. He was going to do the same thing."

"Was not."

"Shut up," Tyler snapped.

Arthur groaned. "If we don't do this now then we'll never do this at all. Come on let's go talk to him." Arthur grabbed them both by the sleeve and dragged them inside…

…Where Alex had been listening just inside the hallway. Arthur and company suffered minor cardiac arrests.

Alex was difficult to ignore for two reasons. The first was that he was so conspicuously alone all the time, in every class. No talking or goofing around or any fraternizing at all. The second was that he was built with enough muscle to pretty much crush anybody who said anything he didn't like. Not quarterback material, but a sturdy physique and the nastiest scowl anybody had ever seen could easily give people the impression that they were staring at their executioner.

That was the look he gave the unfortunate trio before him. Alex leaned against a bank of lockers, on foot bent back against them, arms crossed. "You guys weren't talking about me, were you?"

"NO! No no no, we were talking about old um, old mister, uh…"

Tyler fumbled and Billy grabbed the ball. "Grady! We were talking about Grady. He has a nasty way with kids in his classes. Very, uh, very—oh!" Billy shut up at a jab from Arthur's elbow.

"Good." Alex stalked off, out the doors.

"Ho-ly CRAP!" heaved Tyler. "Did you guys see the look on him?"

Billy stretched his hands behind his head, letting out a bug-eyed puff of a sigh. "Crud. I thought he was going to kill us."

"He had a book under his arm."

"What?" Tyler flicked Arthur's arm. "Snap out of it. What are you muttering about now?"

"He had a couple books under his arm. I think I've read one."

Billy looked away in disgust. "Alright, tell us what it was. _Murder for Dummies_?" Arthur didn't answer, but he did get a look they both knew well enough to fear. "Stay put. Don't do anything stupid."

Arthur shook his head. "You guys stay put. I'm going after him." With that, Arthur struggled free of his backpack and jogged out the doors. His friends told him not to be such a dimwit, but Arthur only took a deep breath and told them to wait. He'd be back. He hoped he'd be back. But since he was surrounded by roughly a thousand other students, Arthur knew his chances were good. He didn't feel that they were good, but he knew it, and that was enough.

He jogged out of the hallway and glanced over the concrete rail. Alex was in the second floor courtyard below, headed to the stairs for the first floor library. "Wait!" Alex looked up at him, but Arthur didn't wait for a reaction. He leapt down the stairs and met him, acutely aware that Alex was at least half a foot taller than he was.

Arthur tried a strained smile. "Hi."

"Hi." Alex didn't scowl. He looked curious, wary, and annoyed, but he wasn't scowling. "Who're you?"

"Oh, right." Arthur told himself to loosen up. "I'm Arthur. Arthur McKinley. You probably don't know me since I'm just a freshman..."

A mocking smile appeared. "I can tell."

"I know. Everybody can tell a freshman, but how many people can tell Dirac notation?" Arthur asked, pointing to the book. He tried not to notice that most of the kids in the courtyard had begun to speak much more quietly.

Alex took out a thin paperback, flashing its cover at Arthur. "You've read this?" A teacher would have used the same tone in accusing a student of plagiarism.

Arthur was relieved to find that he hadn't been mistaken about the book. If he remembered it correctly, it introduced Dirac notation, bras and kets and how they could be used to find quantum mechanical probabilities. "Parts of it, yeah. It's pretty good for something written by one of the scientists themselves."

"This is the second time I've read it. I agree."

An awkward moment passed. Alex stood quietly, mildly amused. After a nervous glance at his shoes, Arthur spoke up again. "I thought you might want to launch a few rockets with us. Me and the guys…" He looked up. Sure enough, Billy and Tyler were looking down from the walkway. "You can see 'em up there." Alex flashed a spookily toothy smile and waved. Billy and Tyler quickly looked at something else.

"Yeah, um, anyway, me and those guys build rockets. We thought you might want to come and watch."

Alex sighed testily. "There used to be a science club here at school. I was the president. Everybody wanted to do something interesting, like build a trebuchet or manufacture gunpowder, but we couldn't because the lazy slobs didn't want to do any research. All we could do was build idiotic model rockets. The highlight was when one of the morons launched a hamster named 'Num Nuts' into the storage compartment of a three-stager." Arthur tried his best to keep a straight face. Alex also seemed to think it was funny, but in a much more cynical kind of way. "So, is that what you guys do?"

"We actually don't have a hamster." Arthur could just hear his friends giggling on the landing above. They probably thought it was a super idea. He didn't think it sounded too bad either, though he wasn't about to say so. "But we're not morons, or at least, I'm not. If morons bother you, you might want to steer clear of Tyler."

"I heard that!"

Alex squinted up at the two, then glanced back to Arthur. "When's the launch?"

Arthur grinned. "This Saturday, noon on the football field." He waited, his breath unconsciously slowed and hopeful as Alex weighed the matter.

Arthur seemed okay to Alex, like he might have more than one working neuron in his skull cavity, and it wasn't exactly like Alex had any plans on the weekends. That the kid admired him was more than obvious, and Alex couldn't say he was opposed to that either. Still, if he hadn't found anybody worth his time in six years, it seemed unlikely that this kid would be any different.

As Alex deliberated, something weird happened that nobody else seemed to notice. Something shifted all around him, like reality had just changed slides. His vision shook like something cosmic had just bounced out of shape, settling just as quickly back into place. Odd things had been starting to happen to him lately, but never like that. Usually it was just a creepy sensation he got around certain shadows-that-weren't-quite shadows, odd darknesses lurking in corners and under desks. It supported an ever growing body of evidence which suggested that 'he needed to get out more.' Mirages were one thing, but delusions were quite another. Alex had long since accepted the option of psychosis, but he figured any attempt to reverse it, even a hopeless one, was worth a shot.

"I'll be there." He adjusted his books and gave a parting nod to the fools on the landing above, neither of whom returned it. Alex disappeared into the library as Billy and Tyler scurried down to meet Arthur.

"Man oh man, did you see that!" Billy shook his head. "That was classic."

"Now we've got a violent nutjob coming to an event that involves the five of us, assuming the Floyds are dumb enough to still want in, plus gunpowder." Tyler clucked his tongue. "This should be interesting."

"I think it'll be fun," Arthur said brightly. "He's obviously a really clever guy."

"Yeah, with a really shiny switchblade."

"Shut up Tyler, or at least keep your voice down."

Tyler huffed. "You just like it because he likes that European quantum crap just like you do. You guys'll get all palsy, what with your matching names and your stupid physics, then it'll be the dumpster for us two."

Arthur shrugged. "At least we'll still have the Floyds."

Billy punched his shoulder and Tyler put in some heavy whining as the three of them started back towards the bleachers where their map-readers waited. The sky shone brightly and the warm air brushed at their shirts. And on a perfect fall day, the universe was rebooted with only one small change in an obscure little high school called New Grounds.


End file.
